Fanny Hill Meets the Red Baron is a 1968 dramaexploitation film. The film was produced and directed by Barry Mahon. The film stars Kristen Steen, Cherie Winters and Sue Evans, reprising her role as Fanny Hill. The movie was released in September 1968. The film is the final one in a series of Fanny Hill movies made by Mahon.[a]
When the Red Baron starts experiencing engine trouble over British air space, he has no choice but to go down behind enemy lines. After landing, he camouflages his plane, stumbles upon a dead soldier, and changes into his uniform in order to disguise himself. Now posing as a soldier from Belgium, he locates a hospital where he finds the nursing staff raising the patients spirits by joining in with them in a variety of sexual activities, along with each other. Fanny Hill is one of those nurses.
The Baron leaves the officers, and begins plotting to free a German prisoner of war, who is supposed to drop off engine parts at the hospital, so he can repair his plane. The prisoner manages to escape during a wild sex party given by the nurses. With nothing to do but wait, the Baron decides to join in with the party.
Meanwhile, Fanny's boyfriend who has been recently released from the hospital, is jealous of the Baron, and sets out to expose him as an imposter. The next morning, Fanny's boyfriend files to the hospital to report what he has discovered. But a German plane has already delivered the parts the Baron needs to repair his plane, and he is back in the air.
The Red Baron encounters Fanny's boyfriend in the air, but his gun has jammed, and the Baron, true to his code, refuses to shoot down a defenseless pilot. So he heads back to Germany, leaving the pilot to continue his sexual affair with Fanny.
Cast
Sue Evans as Fanny
Kristen Steen as a nurse
Cherie Winters as a nurse
Background
Mahon said it only took him two days to write the Red Baron film, noting it took longer to type than to write. He also stated he has never read Fanny Hill, and admits he is not Mike Nichols, but opines that he "can make a picture cheaper than anybody else, and with quality in it." He goes on to say that "if I can make money on Fanny Hill, I make it, but we make them with integrity."[2] Mahon was a pilot for the Royal Air Force, and was a fan of World War I planes and used them in the movie.[3]
Release
The film was released in September 1968.[1] In May 1969, days before the movie was scheduled to be released in Old Bethpage, New York, the theater was shut down by the local police for showing a purported obscene film; patrons walked out chuckling over the incident, with one moviegoer seen pestering a detective as to when the theater was going to reopen, because he did not want to miss Fanny Hill and the Red Baron.[4]
American author Eddie Muller wrote that Mahon was one of the "most prolific makers of adults only films, and made a cottage industry out of exploiting the name Fanny Hill", and now with the Red Baron, has continued with the exploitation.[6] Author William E. Burrows noted that this film is one of two that was made since the Red Baron began appearing in the Peanuts comic strip. He also highlighted the film's tagline: "Dog-fights as hot-blooded Fanny meets the cold-hearted Ace!"[7]
Film historian Bill Warren agreed with Muller, writing that Mahon was one of "the busiest makers of true exploitation films in the 1960s." He also referenced the Fanny Hill series, as being found in "this rather sleazy area of moviemaking". He went on to say that since the name "Fanny Hill" was in the public domain, "Mahon, nothing loath, grabbed the name and ran with it, even dragging in the Red Baron, fixed in the popular mind by Charles Schultz's Peanuts."[8]
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