Overview: The editor-in-chief of a New York women’s magazine is organizing the Last Romantic Lover contest to find out if men still have a sense of romance.

Blu-ray Verdict: Firstly, I am proud to announce that Cult Epics has an exciting new release schedule with several music-related films, slated for the summer. First up was Naked Over the Fence (1973) featuring Sylvia Kristel, which hit Blu-ray mid-August and came complete with a bonus CD of the soundtrack by cult composer Ruud Bos.

Just Jaeckin’s The Last Romantic Lover (1978) is next here on October 25th, and it was he who discovered Sylvia Kristel for the role of Emmanuelle after Naked Over the Fence. The Last Romantic Lover is his personal favorite of the films he directed, and stars Dayle Haddon (Madame Claude) and has a music score by Pierre Bachelet (Emmanuelle).

Following that on November 22nd, with rights courtesy of the Estate of Gainsbourg, Cult Epics will release the soundtrack of Madame Claude by Serge Gainsbourg featuring Jane Birkin on vocals and will reissue the Blu-ray in an edition of 1000 copies with a bonus CD of the long-out-of-print score.

But, I digress, and so getting back on track, The Last Romantic Lover is a rather sweet romance about a liberated woman and a lion tamer. What? Yes. She runs a contest for a magazine to find the last romantic lover, but the magazine criteria is slightly different than the sweet man who she meets!

He is a lion tamer at a poor circus who is entered into the contest by the other members of the circus to get money to help the circus buy a new lion. He is sweet and lives a simple, if not exotic life with the circus. Ergo, he believes it is romantic to just sleep with a woman, not just to have sex with her.

A happy ending makes this a cult favorite, for sure, but in between there is oh-so much more to admire. The main character, Pierre (Gérard Ismaël) is just so lovely throughout, truly, that he almost seems (at times) too good to be true, especially for the love interest, Elisabeth (Dayle Haddon).

The funniest parts are when the weekend gets started and they are at his circus hanging out for he has a lot of carny friends that care for him and that part works very well. As for the well-intentioned sex stuff, well, that didn’t always land and steered more toward being silly and rather overboard; as most French films of this ilk tend to be and do, of course.

Again, the ending is very touching, well thought out and put together and even though throughout the whole movie you are rooting for Pierre (and rightly so), there is so much else going on that it soon becomes a wonderful cinematic spectacle, in and unto itself! If you like older foreign films, this is a must see!

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