ROLLS ROYCE BABY (1975) ****

Any movie that starts with Lina Romay shaving her pussy immediately gets my attention.  Having her practically orgasm by merely applying the shaving lather is a plus.  Never mind the fact that she was clearly shaved before filming.  That in no way detracts from the intensity of the scene, especially when she’s given narration like:  “My body will be smooth and hairless as an infant!”, “Men will desire me as they would a virgin!”, and “They will all lust after my virgin territory!”

This naturally leads to a scene where Lina fingers her freshly shorn fun button until she humps herself into nirvana.    

We eventually find out her character, Lisa is a nude model/actress.  She doesn’t pose for her photographer for five minutes before he’s banging her under the hot lights.  Later, she watches a guy doing Kung Fu and imagines him karate-chopping naked before giving him a demonstration of nude yoga.  She tells him about her past when she was picked up hitchhiking by a trucker.  She strips down in the passenger seat and the trucker and his buddy bang her in the back of the cab.  (“I’ll teach you how to fuck in a truck!”)

Then, something of a plot emerges.  She gets her Kung Fu friend to dress up as a chauffeur and drive her around in her Rolls Royce.  They then pick up random hitchhikers who are more than happy to get it on with her in the backseat.  If it takes them a while to find someone, she’s content to mess around with herself (again) until a prospective stud shows up.  She even mistakes one woman (Ursula Shaefer) for a man, but luckily, she’s more than willing to do the backseat boogie with Lisa.  

Rolls Royce Baby is one of the best Lina Romay vehicles ever made (no pun intended).  It’s not quite as good as Jess Franco’s Female Vampire, but it certainly comes close, just in terms of pure skin alone. Director Erwin C. (Frauleins in Uniform) Dietrich gives us lots of lingering close-ups of Romay’s… shall we say, femininity.  There’s hardly any part of Lina that goes unexplored.  Dietrich also gives us a hint of hardcore footage (which is tastefully done).

Lina gives a terrific performance.  She’s surprisingly tender in the scene where she sits alone in the car using a tissue to wipe herself clean after an anonymous fuck.  She looks absolutely lonely and miserable.  It’s a great moment that shows her ultimately empty existence.  Little touches like these highlight the fact that Dietrich and Romay wanted to make something more than just a simple skin flick (but not too much).  

Take for example the ending.  At first, you think a relationship is going to form with Lisa and the woman she picks up as she is the only hitchhiker who is invited back to the house and goes for multiple rounds in the sack with her.  Eventually, she moves on, leaving Lisa and her chauffeur alone once again.  The film ends with them getting into the car and going on the prowl for more sex.  Nothing is learned.  No message is hammered home.  Nothing is gained.  Nothing is lost.  We’re left with the impression her sexual appetites probably will never be sated, and she will go on repeating her behavior again and again.  There is no judgment here.  No slut shaming.  Although there is no celebrating her sexual liberation either.  Dietrich is merely presenting the desperate act of a lonely woman with the means of living out her fantasies and fetishes.  Because of that, Rolls Royce Baby is a premium import.