Bored ambassador's wife Cecilia (Muriel Montossé, FASCINATION) is picked up from a yachting trip by chauffer Kam (José Valero). He does not bat an eye when she strips off in the backseat; instead, he takes another route from home, setting her up to be raped by his brothers who were fired from the estate for spying on her since he believes she encouraged it with her exhibitionism. Her ambassador husband André (Antonio Mayans, THE DEVIL HUNTER) is ready to defend her honor, but Cecilia tells him that the act of violation awakened in her the realization that their own passionate relationship has waned and she wants an open relationship. André balks at this until Cecilia and her gay father figure Antoine (A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD's Antônio do Cabo who also served as dubbing director on the Spanish versions of this and other Franco films from the period) set him up to be seduced by Antoine's black companion which turns into a three-way; whereupon, he hits upon the "novel" idea that they must tell each other about their experiences with other partners but they must remain true to each other in the heart. Although the couple has some fun together – including an orgy involving a cabaret owner (Lina Romay, FEMALE VAMPIRE) whose act involves sex with her own teenage son – the arrangement becomes a strain as André starts making up encounters to keep Cecilia heated up, and Cecilia realizes that her attraction to lurking Kam is more than fleshly.

CECILIA was originally a Spanish production titled ABERRACIONES SEXUALES DE UNA MUJER CASADA (Sexual Aberrations of a Married Woman) in which the protagonist was named Emmanuelle – tying it in with Franco's THE INCONFESSABLE ORGIES OF EMMANUELLE which also starred Montrosse and Mayans – and Mayans is Andreas, an Italian ambassador who Emmanuelle met in Venice (with the backstory of him divorcing his wife and her leaving her boyfriend seemingly a rewrite of Franco's and Romay's messy breakups with their respective partners). While THE INCONFESSABLE ORGIES OF EMMANUELLE had a more clever plot in its lampooning the image of Spanish machismo through the contrasting narration and onscreen antics of a pompous Spanish nobleman (Tony Squios, THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX), CECILIA has more heated sex scenes and more attractive photography even though it lacks the former's Techniscope framing. The plot, on the other hand, is nonsensical at best and maybe even problematic in its iteration of the old "bored housewives crave rape" fantasies – as much a convention of pornography of the time like INTRUSION as it was of more satirical comedy like the British sitcom BUTTERFLIES – Cecilia and André flaunting their decadent behavior despite his position, and a bookending gang rape that seems to wake Cecilia to the joys of monogamy (an American golden age porno version of the same scenario probably would have had a more downbeat ending). The film is one of Franco's most gorgeous-looking productions, shooting in and around the misty tropical gardens of Sintra's Monserrate Palace – also seen in Franco's VOODOO PASSION and DIE SKLAVINNEN – gifted to explorer Francis Cook who planted tropical trees and plants on the grounds from his various expeditions. When Eurocine picked up the film for French and international distribution, they added fifteen minutes of additional scenes directed by actor Olivier Mathot under the pseudonym of Claude Plaut – Mathot also directed the additional French scenes for REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER – who also appeared as Cecilia's uncle in some Paris scenes designed to open the film up (EXORCISM's Pierre Taylou was also featured as a suitor).

Unreleased theatrically or on home video stateside, CECILIA was available on the gray market in its English dub but not widely available until Blue Underground's 2007 DVD which featured an attractive anamorphic transfer of the extended Eurocine version with English and French tracks and English dubtitles. Blue Underground's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray is quite the revelation. The earlier transfer was nice enough but detail is nicely enhance, particularly when it comes to skin textures and the delineation of hair (on all parts of the body) while some pale blue lighting is more emphasized here than in standard definition. English and French DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono tracks are similarly clean while the English subtitles for the French track only differ slightly at times from the SDH subtitles available for the English track.

The major extra is the inclusion of the original Spanish version (87:50 versus the expanded French version's 105:04) which is actually digitally recreated from the French master; as such, the Spanish credits are not included but Blue Underground instead uses the French title sequence – since the credits appear on freeze frames, it appears that even Eurocine at the time did not have a textless version of the credits background scenes – and the Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio is not as clean and crisp as the French and English tracks. The Spanish dubbing and the English subtitles give the film a more somber feel, making the protagonist sound less kittenish, and the lack of the Paris scenes giving the film's setting a more dreamlike insular feeling.

Previously included on 88 Films' British Blu-ray of THE DEVIL HUNTER, "Franco-Philes: Musings on Madrid's B-Movie Maverick" (68:04) is an expanded version of a documentary examining Franco's career – the British Blu-ray version ran only 47:59 – featuring the contributions of British genre historians Rachael Nisbett, John Martin, and Julian Petley along with Fangoria's Tony Timpone, Starburst Magazine's Martin Unsworth, Necronomicon journal editor Andy Black, and Sitges programmer Mike Hostench. Topics of discussion include early exposure to Franco either as a horror filmmaker in poor quality and often cut video presentations or as a pornographer, with viewings of THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF as the jumping off point to a greater understanding of his abilities and diversity as a filmmaker and as well as an understanding of his adapting to the times and economic circumstances, his working relationships with muses Soledad Miranda and Lina Romay (and how they reflected his changing ambitions as a filmmaker), as well as Franco's stable of performers and collaborators. Mayans pops up briefly to discuss how he was production manager on the films he worked on with Franco as an actor but often uncredited so they did not have to pay twice as much in taxes, as well as why his "Robert Foster" pseudonym and Romay's "Candy Coster" one were applied to only some of their film. Dyanne Thorne (ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S.) and her husband Howard Maurer also turn up to recall not only their experiences on ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN but also Franco offscreen as a musician and the man who provided them with a list of places and restaurants to visit on their European vacation following the film.