The Dirty Girls was a title Metzger came to regret – "the ‘dirty’ label stuck to my films for a few years," he has said – and the film itself should also have occasioned some regret. It’s a tedious black-and-white tour of the demimonde of whores in Paris and Munich (the film was shot in the latter city). The first half tracks the adventures of a pretty, vapid prostitute and the variety of tricks she encounters in Paris. These tricks – a nervous student, a sadist, a fetishist – provide the "everyman" feel of the film and, perhaps more importantly, are unattractive enough not to threaten male viewers. Midway through, the plot does an abrupt turn to Munich and focuses on another bubble-brained whore, Monique. There’s no thread that ties these adventures together, unless you count the overdub – a radio announcer-type voice that prattles endlessly about "the woman of 10,000 pleasures." This voiceover also establishes what we see as a pure male fantasy filled with submissive, dewy-eyed sex dolls, a far cry from the tough (if troubled) women of later, better Metzger films like Therese and Isabel or Camille 2000. An idiotic comic subplot with a geeky New York businessman trying (for what seems like hours) to give a camera to Monique only adds to the woes.

By the time Carmen, Baby came around three years later, The New York Times was taking notice: "The hip Carmen in modern undress" was the paper of record’s judgment. As in many a Metzger, this one opens with a male voiceover leading us on a tour of a swinging new world of casual sex and, in this case, casual crime. Carmen’s a Spanish waitress who, according to the tenor of the times, pursues her fun on her own terms and has a vague involvement with some smugglers. This gives considerable grief to Jose, the policeman who moons over, and eventually murders, her.

Carmen, Baby is middling successful Metzger, and very typical of his work. It has a strong woman at the center; exotic location shooting; artful, discreet sex scenes; and a party sequence to show American audiences the director’s singular brand of "la dolce vita." Pop culture was still trying to make sense of women who stood up for themselves and demanded sexual equality, and Carmen, well played by Uta Levka, is no surprise in this regard: she’s a mystery even to her many admirers. A Baron who’s enthralled with her says, "I know her intimately… but not well." Jose refers to her despairingly as "that strange and wild girl."