In a way, im kind of glad that the boutique labels have been slowly releasing these older Adult features, as they’re a rich history of an aspect of society that isnt often talked about in very much detail. Sex and pornography at the time and increasingly in modern times are often ‘hushed’ topics that seem to bring awkward shuffling in seats and arguements about ‘what their point is?’ from some subsections of society. while modern adult entertainment has its own debates, i’ve found it fascinating exploring these older titles and seeing how tastes and styles have changed over the decades.

‘A Thousand and One Erotic Nights’ is a perfect example of a film that ABSOLUTELY wouldnt and couldnt have been made any later than 1982. I personally didnt really get on with this film for a few reasons. It’s essentially a ‘sexy’ reimagining of the ‘1001 nights’ fairytail series. It boasts on the poster to be the ‘first million dollar adult extravaganza’ and let me tell you, those 2 sets they have REALLY pop for that money (okay…thats a bit of an exaggeration…but my point still stands).

So…there’s no way to broach this subject lightly…theres a LOT of ‘Brown-face’ in this thing…and I mean, A LOT. I think theres maybe two genuinely asian actors in this production and 2 maybe 3 cast members who clearly refused to do it, the rest are in makeup, and while they DO manage to stop short of doing ‘comedy’ middle eastern accents. They DO speak in broken English (with an american accent) for a good chunk of the runtime.

I found that very problematic personally, and apart from the fact that it was INCREDIBLY distracting because, these are some of the WHITEST actors i’ve seen on screen trying to play non white people. the ACTUAL asian actors on set are ALSO basically playing hopped up charicatures of there respective cultures…

Thats before we even GET to the plot. Which in and of itself is rife with issues. Its been a LONG time since I read ‘1001 Nights’, but the key beats from the overhanging story form the book have more or less been transplanted into an adult film context here…but amped up a little…because y’know…sex.

In THIS rendition of the classic, a Sultan finds out his wife has been cheating on him with multiple men and decides to create a new rule for his harem to dissuade disloyalty. Every night he’ll pick a member of his harem, sleep with her, and then hang her in the morning so she cant betray him, and to send a message to the other girls to stay loyal.

However, on his first night he picks a 19 year old who was traded into his harem, who has only one skill. Storytelling, and so, every night for 1001 nights, she regails the sultan with a new tail, always ending on a cliffhanger that branches into a new story the next night.

This is of course a free pass for the film to do a ‘sexy’ anthology series. and on its technical ability is pretty much where this film earns most of its good points from me.

The actual script itself is pretty pacy, its an hour and 26 and feels shorter. the act structuring just about sits right, the balance between plot lines and sex scenes is a little sex heavy for me personally. But not to the films overall detriment. Theres some variety on the scenes present here, but it is a little heavy on Girl/Girl stuff…which is fine, but they dont really shake up the cinematography between scenes…So there were moments where I thought my film had skipped out.

Tonally, the films a bit all over the place, dealing with very bleak subjects at times, but also veering into border parody with some of the ‘Characters’ introduced across the runtime. The dialogues also kind of poor, mainly because, as mentioned…it’s trying to do the whole ‘broken English’ thing to make it sound foreign…when the ACTUAL deliveries are just in plain English. It sounds weird.

The direction is technically on the level, if the claims that this is the first million dollar adult feature are true, I am genuinely at a loss as to where that money went. Because collectively I counted maybe 4 locations (essentially the same set redressed 4 times) and a possible location shoot. The sets are all very nicely furnished. But it’s somewhat tarnished by the fact that 90% of the cast are dressed in costumes clearly from a fancy dress shop, or from whatever ‘wardrobe’ had free in the dumpster round the back that day.

There is absolutely a creative flair present here and the film does look fairly professionally presentable. But the sex scenes do suffer quite a bit here because the director and cinematographer seem VERY focussed on jsut making everything a closeup or mid closeup. I personally always champion an erotic film getting a decent set of close ups, but you need some wides and midwides to really help break up the flow, to add context, to help the audience take in the ambience of the scene…just showing a curated series of shots of random gyrations is quite literally about as ‘erotic’ as it sounds…

The performances are largely poor. I dont think theres a single standout ‘good’ performance here…but PLENTY of bad ones, make NO mistake.

and the soundtrack does have a grand feeling to it, which VERY much helps to set the tone and scene. But its just not enough to really get this one over the line for me.

The majority of my rating for this one stems from its technical ability. Honestly; I cant really fault the cine, scoring, *MOST* of the set designs and the direction (with noted issues with the sex scenes raised here) But the scripts VERY dated as of the year 2024, the brown face stuff is pretty unforgivable and the perforamances range from ‘barely passable’ to ‘dire’.

This one wasnt for me, and I dont think I can recommend it personally…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-thousand-and-one-erotic-nights/