Melody In Love

Year releasted: 1978

by Nathan Rabin
November 5th, 2003

"We all live on a volcano of one kind or another. The only real difference is on this island we've got a real one," worldly new mother Claudine Bird tells impressionable cousin Britta Glatzeder early in Melody In Love, none-too-subtly foreshadowing the film's none-too-thrilling climax. Glatzeder (who is first seen astride her horse, wearing little more than a sensible riding thong) arrives at Bird's island innocent in the ways of sex, but eager to learn from her more experienced relative. Within minutes of her arrival, Glatzeder has stripped naked and spied a 16-year-old neighbor pleasuring himself while watching her. Frightened and concerned that she'll never find the right man, Glatzeder seeks her cousin's advice. When the former insists that the only man she's interested in is Bird's husband (Wolf Goldan), Bird replies, "Ah, so you'd like to share my husband with me? That's not impossible. Let's go shopping!" Shopping ensues, as does a form of familial bonding frowned upon by polite society. Bird and her cousin soon consummate their relationship, but not until after Glatzeder is nearly raped by an islander whose assault is stopped by another, more scrupulous citizen. A combination martial-arts battle and knife fight between the two men follows, leaving Glatzeder's defender dead. Immediately afterward, the strangely unaffected girl spies two female islanders doing a strange ritual dance whose nudity and softcore sauciness suggest that the island may be run by a young Zalman King. She also learns that Bird and Goldan have an open marriage, which Bird exploits by taking a lover (Sascha Hehn) and sharing him with her increasingly experienced cousin. While Glatzeder frolics with Hehn, Bird goes to meet the oft-absent Goldan, who arrives with an infatuated 17-year-old nymphet in tow. The sexscapades pause long enough for Goldan to engage in what Melody's box generously describes as "a thrilling underwater battle" with a shark—and, later, an octopus—but much softcore screwing follows, as well as a non-metaphorical volcanic eruption that appears to do shockingly little damage. Melody In Love ends with Glatzeder once again being spied on by a neighbor boy. Older, hornier, and much more oversexed, Glatzeder invites the bashful voyeur to keep leering, having learned the valuable life lesson that the best way to deal with peeping toms is to embrace them.