I recently got hold of a copy of Charles Matton's erotic sci-fi spoof SPERMULA and it is an odd film indeed.
It's like a mix of 50's sci-fi with Josef von Sternberg plus some erotic stuff that looks like it is partly xxx but shot in a way to look softer.

The story is a group of aliens that is doomed of extinction, and who travels to Earth and takes the form of beautiful women in order to spermalise the degarding species of man.
They hide-out in opulent Art Deco mansion, and one of them, played by Udo Kier, was accidentally given the form of a male with a small organ.

The best scenes in my opinion are those where the female aliens use their hypnotic powers to get the men. Those scenes are made with a visual style, well not up to Bava standards, but still pretty good.
It reminded me of Harry Kuemel's DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, (also a Von Sternberg buff, as is Jose Larraz), but Matton seems stuck between creating a haunting poetic piece of erotic art (which SPERMULA could have become in the hands of say Rollin for example), but the sci-fi spoof stuff ruins this.
The actors are decent, Udo Kier is perfect but somewhat underused.

Also there seems to be versions of varying length of this film, mine cloked in at 83 minutes or so, so I'll suppose it's cut.

It is an interesting film, and one I would like to see released by the German X-RATED FILMS for example in a gorgeous print.

I soke to a guy in Cannes earlier this year who claimed to own the rights, but after repeated attempts at contacting him again, all has gone quiet. Typical, eh?

FYI, I have two video releases of SPERMULA:

Video Classics (Austtralia) - 87m 45s (English dubbed and re-edited)
Fil-à-Film (France) - 102m 55s (Original French language, but apparently still not the complete version)

It would be interesting to hear Charles Matton's opinions of his film today.
The last film he did, if I'm not incorrect, was a film about the life of Rembrandt which is suppused to be pretty good.
Matton today seems to be more into various art projects, there are some of his created "stylized rooms" on the net.

My initial reaction on seeing SPERMULA was that it was clearly another film at some point in its history. It looks like it was a period costume drama, certainly not about aliens, possibly not even about vampires, and was dubbed and edited into an unfunny s-f sex spoof. None of the special effects cut-aways look like the rest of the film, and if I'm remembering correctly, none of the actors are involved in the effects footage. It also accounts for the confused plot and schizoid tone, which puts broad, goofy dialogue in the mouths of serious-looking characters in a melodramatic plot. None of this is without precedent in the Eurocult world, but I find it especially weird: of all the movies to recut into a fun alien sex romp... why THIS one?

I know I posted the question "what was SPERMULA before it was SPERMULA?" here before, but I don't remember getting a reply. I have seen un-dubbed, longer cuts listed on, you know, collector's lists, but haven't heard any details from anyone who's actually seen one.

Marc, do you know the original title? Can you fill us in on the plot of the longer cut?

A few years ago Dayle Haddon was in the bookstore where I worked for a signing, possibly her book "Ageless Beauty" which would have been about the right time. Nobody else there knew anything about her so I waited until after the signing to fill them in on this aspect of her filmography. If only I had known the questions that needed answering....