Daisy Miller (1974) Peter Bogdanovich, Cybill Shepherd, Barry Brown, Cloris Leachman, Drama, Romance

In contrast to most actor/actresses-turned-vocalists, there's nothing to joke about on this album - no Golden Throats candidates, except maybe the title track. For starters, Shepherd has a solid jazz ensemble backing her up, led by Stan Getz and arranged by Oscar Neves, and gives us a very enjoyable jazz-flavored record. She takes the Fred Astaire approach to singing, not denying that she has a limited range but working carefully within that range and even using those limitations to her advantage. Getz's solos perfectly complement Shepherd's voice, and she stretches out ravishingly on "This Masquerade," "I'm Old Fashioned" is a sexy torch number in her hands, without a trace of campiness, "Speak Low" soars subtly and elegantly, and the opening number, Ginastera's "Triste," is a sophisticated piece of concert music and a triumph for her as well.

Walerian Borowczyk's first explicitly erotic feature, IMMORAL TALES presents a veritable cavalcade of depravity: cosmic fellatio, transcendental masturbation, blood-drenched lesbianism and papal incest. It tells four stories, each delving further back in time, as if to suggest that the same issues recur constantly throughout human civilisation, whether involving notorious historical figures like Lucrezia Borgia and Erzsébet Báthory, or present-day teenagers.