Obviously made to cash in on "Women In Love" but lacking in the former's brooding atmosphere or rampant sensuality, The Virgin & The Gypsy promises much but fails to deliver.The racy (for its time) title and the full-on nudity of its predecessor must have brought out the dirty mac brigade in droves when it was released. If so, they were to be sorely disappointed. Here we find Franco "Sex On Legs" Nero paired with an unremarkable lead actress of charisma-bypass proportions. No chemistry between them. None.The editing seems to be remarkably clumsy and I've yet to see a print that has been remastered which all adds to the the impression of a moth-eaten also-ran. The pace is slow. The production values are cheap. It's just not very good.

Christopher Miles' take on DH Lawrence is perhaps more delicate in its execution than Ken Russell's Women in Love, but no less appealing to watch. He strongly evokes the period of Lawrence's novella and the stifling home atmosphere that the heroine, Yvette, returns to. In that role, Joanna Shimkus displays beauty, spirit and conflicting emotions in equal measure, kicking against the straight-laced boundaries of her family and trying to come to terms with a dark secret at its heart, when no-one else will.Into her life comes Franco Nero's saturnine gypsy, who has an immediate and increasing effect on the young woman. Having recently seen him as the pure of heart, but initially pompous Sir Lancelot in Camelot, his performance here is more akin to that seen in Django - a man of very few words, inclined more to action to express himself. It's not hard to see why Yvette is attracted to him - not only strikingly handsome, but also the absolute opposite of the young men she knows in the village, who all seem pervaded with post-WW1 uncertainty. There are plenty of sensual moments and a strong feeling of the desire he has created in her, as much to escape the familial bonds as anything else.The denouement of the film almost seems a little rushed in the end, but perhaps this is down to its faithfulness to the original book which is just 10 chapters long. Worth a viewing if you enjoy other Lawrence adaptations, period tales or romantic dramas.

The Virgin and the Gypsy was a novella by D. H. Lawrence that contrasted the suffocating closeness and inhibited atmosphere of an English cleric and his extended family with the awakening sexuality of his eldest daughter and the free spirited influence of a gypsy whom she meets.The excellent screenplay by Alan Plater who also did the screenplay for "The Priest of Love", a biography of D. H. Lawrence, complements the direction by Christopher Miles. Their efforts helped create a film that matches if it does not surpass, the prose of D. H. Lawrence. A few scenes still stand out; the hysteria of Aunt Cissie who screams insults through the door at Yvette., the comedy of the church social evening when Uncle Fred sings a bawdy, music-hall song and the scene in which the Gypsy confronts and stares down several English youths.I saw Franco Nero earlier in the film "Camelot." He plays the Gypsy in this film with quiet, machismo, atitude. Joanna Shimkus also played with quiet, understated style that plays well with that of Nero.I saw this film during its initial release in 1970. I hope television networks may eventually air this film again or that it finds its way into a video or DVD.

Browsing through and cataloguing my tapes just now (I genuinely had nothing better to do) I found this film 'The Virgin and the Gypsy', which I must have taped off channel 5 some time back for the sole purpose of forwarding through to the saucy bits, weapon at the ready and perched alertly over the remote.Now that I'm too old for such shenanigans (and not living at home has taken away the 'someone-could-walk-in-at-any-minute' edge), I thought I'd actually watch the film.To summarise, it's not that great, not that bad, some nice photography, I just found out the main bird is Mrs Sidney Poitier, she is very good looking in it, but provides very little amusement for adolescent armchair residents, especially in these days of the internet (where nothing less than a horse-midget combo will do). And I reckon the guy (the 'Gypsy' of the title) inspired Kevin Rowland's Dexy's 'look'.