I saw this film at the Paris Theatre in Brighton in 1960. I was 15 at the time, and illegal. I got in through the side door when the earlier sitting came out.
I have little memory of the story, except that it is set in an all-purpose earlier age, some time in the mid-1700s, and in deep rural bliss.
At one point, the heroine, wearing a full-length dirndl dress, squats in the barnyard and has a long pee. This shocked and amazed for two reasons. One, it instantly conveyed that the young woman was 'going commando'. Two, it depicted something in full-colour that would never, ever have been shown in a Hollywood or UK picture of the time. Kenneth More would have died!
In the context of heavily hung stallions mounting mares and other barnyard themes, it was entirely appropriate, and I am sure that French audiences of the day did not bat an eyelid. It proves how deep the shallow English Channel really was in those days.
And yet, only a few years later, certainly partly inspired by this randy, amusing and engaging film, Tony Richardson was making the ground-breaking Tom Jones.
