Claude Mulot's Black Venus begins when a man named Jacques (Emiliano Redondo) decides to take a tour of a house of ill repute wherein the various parties employed therein can be viewed by the convenient placement of some two-way mirrors. He stops when he recognizes one of the ladies, and he decides to tell us her story and how he came to know her.

Enter Venus (Josephine Jacqueline Jones), a beautiful woman who soon finds herself the apple of Armand's (Jose Antonio Ceinos) eye. He doesn't have two pennies to rub together but she allows him to create a sculpture of her and soon they begin a torrid affair. He finds in her the muse he's been looking for and they figure they'll be alright until the landlord comes looking for the rent and when Armand doesn't have it opts to take it out on Venus in trade. Venus resists and soon heads out to find work of her own as a model, but this causes tension between her and Armand and soon he sends her on her way, his pride wounded and his ego smashed.

Venus is taken in by a married woman named Marie (Karin Schubert) who uses her as a plaything until her husband shows up with Louise (Florence Guérin) – it seems he more or less had the same swinging idea. He insists that Louise and Venus perform for him, and they oblige without debate but when he insists on having them perform at his next social gathering, she finally resists and confronts him on this. Having learned how hard the world can be, she runs off to work at a brothel with Louise while Armand, his statue now complete, slowly begins to fade. It's here that the story comes full circle and Jacques' character becomes important once again, offering the two ladies a chance at what he feels will be true happiness.

Written by the legendary Harry Alan Towers (best known for his collaborations with Jess Franco such as Eugenie... The Story Of Her Journey Into Perversion) and directed by Claude Mulet (the man behind the infamous Pussy Talk and I Am A Nymphomaniac), the film suffers from a few slower spots here and there but does manage to deliver on atmosphere and mood. The love scenes are genuinely erotic and what they lack in overtly explicit activity they make up for in enthusiasm and style. The Victorian-era costumes add an element of class to the proceedings and while the story is fairly standard the cinematography makes the utmost of its attractive cast of females.

Josephine Jacqueline Jones, who would later star alongside Cybil Danning in Chuck Vincent's Warrior Queen (also written by Harry Alan Towers) has got fantastic screen presence and she's well suited to the role. She certainly looks every bit the part and it's no stretch at all to see how the rest of the characters are all drawn to her. She exudes heat from her first scene and isn't a half bad actress either. Emiliano Redondo (of The People Who Own The Dark) is amusing in his book end appearances while Jose Antonio Ceinos is quite sympathetic as the tortured artist. Look for a cameo from Monique Gabrielle (of Chained Heat) in one of the brothel scenes playing Ingrid.

In the end, the film is little more than a melodrama with some fancy costumes, pleasant art direction and an attractive cast of lovelies. No one here is reinventing the wheel but neither are they trying to. The movie serves its purpose in that it provides some soap opera style drama and more than a few steamy softcore scenes but brings little originality to the screen. What carries the film is Jones' performance - whether or not she's a great actress is debatable but she's certainly an impressive looking woman and she's given enough to do here that she is able to make the most of it.

Video:

The 1.33.1 fullframe transfer is sharp with minimal print damage and nice color reproduction and things look pretty good here for the most part. This also appears to be the proper aspect ratio for the film as there's no noticeable cropping or compromising of the image or the compositions. Edge enhancement is noticeable only in the most minor of instances and there aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts. Print damage only appears in the form of some small specks here and there and a scratch or two that pops up on the screen momentarily but none of that is distracting enough to really warrant complaining about it. This is a very nice transfer.