Painful Promotion

Distributed by Spanking for Pleasure.  'Painful Promotion' is available through the Spanking for Pleasure store on Clips4Sale (www.clips4sale.com) and through the Spankflix, the SfP video on demand service.  It was distributed in the US by CalStar and that release is currently available on www.hotmovies.com.

I said in my last post that I wanted to return to British spanking movies because they have always been my first love and where better to start than with a Sophie Fennington movie.  Ms. Fennington was one of the leading British spanking film stars of the eighties and nineties.  She was the contemporary and British counterpart of Kyrie Kelly in the US and a forerunner of Amelia Jane Rutherford.  But Ms. Fennington made fewer movies than Kelly and far fewer than Rutherford.  In fact, her career consisted of only 10 movies, including the 1994 movie “Sophie Fennington Interview”, and three photostories in Janus magazine.  I’ve already reviewed three of her movies, "Lisa Must be Caned", “The Flogging of Lady Constance” and “Caning and Cold Showers”; the last two of these are among my all-time favorites.

“Painful Promotion” was the second movie made by Ms. Fennington.  It was released by ‘Spanking for Pleasure’ in 1983 and it runs just a few seconds short of 40 minutes.  ‘Spanking for Pleasure’ is a major name in the British spanking film industry.  The company is still active and, according to its website (www.spankingforpleasure.com):

“SfP was established in 1983 by two English producers based in Soho London to produce realistic spanking videos initially for retail in the local sex shops. After producing several titles initial reaction was favourable and soon they were the market leader with an avid following. After signing an agreement with a US distribution firm their movies became known worldwide.”

The American distributor was California Star and many SfP movies appeared as part of CalStars’ English Spanking and English Discipline series.  Unfortunately, CalStar had a habit of changing the titles of the movies which can make them difficult to find.

The rather thin premise of this movie is that a business owner, played by Sophie's husband Christian, is trying to decide which of three female employees will receive a promotion and their ability to take punishment is hir criterion.  All three of the women are elegantly dressed, which is something I always like to see, particularly when those dresses come off.  A glamorous brunette goes first. Christian lifts her evening dress to expose black panties and gives her a moderate hand spanking which is accompanied by somewhat unrealistic ‘ow’s,’ ‘ooh’s,’ and ‘ah’s.’

The second woman (Fiona) is wearing a teal silk gown with black string bikini panties.  She also receives a hand spanking from Christian.  Finally, it is Sophie’s turn.  She is wearing a long white knit dress, which looks like the same dress she wore in the cover photo for Janus #53.  Her OTK spanking is, dress up and no panties.  After the OTK, all the three girls kneel on the floor with their elbows on the couch.  Sophie pulls the other two girls’ panties down and Christian continues with a further hand spanking and then a slipper. Soon, Sophie is up on the couch helping Christian with a further hand spanking and then he pulls her across the backs of the kneeling girls for her turn.

After a break for a cigarette and a drink the session continues with the cane.  Fiona is first and she receives three strokes of the cane (this scene is missing from some copies of the movie).  Next, the woman in the black dress lies across Sophie’s lap and is held by Fiona.  She asks for the slipper rather than the cane so Sophie lifts her dress and Christian gives her about a dozen smacks with the slipper.  (In her interview, Sophie says that one of the women was frightened of the cane and I can only assume that it was the woman in the black dress.)  Sophie is next and she chooses the cane.  She is bent over the couch with her dress up and she receives 6 strokes on her bare bottom without any protest.

Next, the girls move to the fireplace with Sophie in the middle and Christian decides they should be completely naked.  Sophie is first and she pulls her knit dress over her head.  Christian decides she should have a few more strokes of the cane “since we haven’t had a scream from you yet”.  “And you won’t” she replies.  He gives her three strokes before she says that she can take it harder.  Christian moves on to Fiona and the teal dress comes off.  She also chooses the cane and Sophie pulls down her bikini panties and a short caning follows.  The brunette selects the crop and takes off her dress. Sophie adjusts her panties; they stay on for the moment but they eventually come down.  Christian gives her six with the crop but the strokes don’t seem to be as hard as the earlier cane strokes. The movie ends with three bare bottoms on display at the fireplace and a long creaming scene that lasts nearly 10 minutes. 

This movie looks like the cast was having a good time during filming but the result is something of a disappointment.  Ms. Fennington talked about the making of “Painful Promotion” during her ‘Interview’.  She said that the movie was originally intended to have two tops, a man and a woman who were intended to play a husband and wife.  It was the habit to share a bottle of wine before beginning to shoot a movie and, in fact, the movie opens with the cast sharing a drink.   Apparently, the woman intended to play the female disciplinarian had a little too much and had to be sent home in a taxi and the story had to be revised accordingly.  I can’t help but suspect that some of the problems with this movie arise from that incident.  In addition, the camera work isn’t very good and many scenes are poorly framed.  As if all that isn’t enough, my copy (which comes directly from SfP) isn’t very well preserved.  I have heard that some older SfP movies are being remastered.  I hope this is one of them but that wouldn't remedy the other problems with this movie.