< Bacanales romanas

• My Nights with Messalina UK title

• Ajita Wilson plays Ajita, Venus de Ebano
• Carla Dey plays Agrippina (softcore only)
• Concha Valero plays short-haired Roman lady / Gaulish warrior's mistress / Voice of Ajita / Voice of Messalina (softcore only)
• Eva Wagner plays Blonde Roman lady / Gaulish warrior's wife / Woman bearing torches (softcore only)
• Julia Caballero plays Vestal (non-sex role)
• Mirna Bel as Mirna Vel, plays High Priestess (softcore only)
• Olga Rodriguez plays chestnut-haired Roman lady / Gaulish warrior's daughter (softcore only)
• Patricia Cauzard uncredited, plays a sex performer
• Raquel Evans plays Messalina (softcore only)

Males –

• Joaquín Gómez, as King Gómes, plays Pijon (softcore only)
• Antonio Maroño, as Toni Maroño, plays Claudius (softcore only)
• Carlos Pérez plays Gaulish warrior / vendor / drunken Roman soldier (softcore only)
• Jaime Bascu, uncredited, plays man in temple
• unidentified actor (perhaps the guy credited as Jean Paul Perrier in Depravación) plays Egyptian stud
• Antonio Molino Rojo, as Red Mills, plays Caesar (non-sex role)
• Conrado Tortosa, as “Pipper” plays Veteranus (non-sex role)
• Anjo Solon plays Messenger (non-sex role)

Plot Synopsis –

During the Roman campaigns in Gaul, general Claudius has the bad luck to catch VD, forcing him to return to Rome in the company of a medically competent druid – the handsome, hugely endowed but sexually innocent Pijon. Once the Frenchman becomes the talk of Rome among Roman women, one of his admirers, Messalina, entrusts the randy, obstreperous centurion Veteranus with the task of taking Pijon for a night out in the town, so that he may finally become a man.

Some remarks -

Theatrically released in Spain as a softcore film, shorn of the hardcore material prepared for the foreign market. The film’s Spanish VHS release in November 1983 restored the hardcore component, but with no indication given on the video cover about these scenes. This version remains essentially a softcore film that includes some isolated hardcore footage featuring Ajita Wilson, Jaime Bascu, an uncredited actress (who has been listed in at least one other film as “Patricia Cauzard”) and an unidentified male (who might be the same guy as “Jean Paul Perrier” in that other film, although one can’t be absolutely certain).

Bacanales romanas includes much stock footage from other films for the crowd scenes, as well as a considerable amount of library music. The score credited to Jaime A. Puig reuses a theme earlier featured in Perversión en el paraíso, also directed by Jaime J. Puig.

The film was immediately followed in 1982 by the same director’s Una Virgen para Calígula, likewise set in Ancient Rome, with much the same cast (except Ajita Wilson), featuring the same lead character of the Centurion Veteranus (again played by “Pipper”), and making ostensible re-use of music (both stock cues and themes by Jaime A. Puig), sets, costumes, locations and footage from the earlier film, in addition to what appear to be outtakes.

Its sequel, Bacanales romanas II, was released in 1985, also directed by Jaime J. Puig and retaining the Ancient Roman trappings and central cast members (“Pipper”, Raquel Evans, Joaquín Gómez) of its nominal predecessor, but not attempting any continuity with its narrative. Made some time after the demise of the Spanish softcore film (whose last entries were premiered in the spring of 1984) and the government-imposed “S” classification, Bacanales romanas II is a racy comedy rather than a sex film, neither hardcore nor softcore.

Nzoog Wahlrfhehen (3/10/08)