In one of his truly benchmark efforts, Thomas offers a treatise defiantly decrying the institutionalized parochialism permeating society. The vehicle of his message is Daphne, a nymph spirit connected to a spring hidden under a ramshackle apartment building. Played by Chasey Lain, she seduces a new tenant, who later aids in the effort to save the building from city officials planning to demolish it.

By means of sexual manipulation they are ultimately successful, cajoling the owner of the building to sign a contract while in an impaired state... a lusty impaired state. In the interim the purely sexual nymph learns about love, informed by the architect's heartfelt readings of Shakespeare.

But Thomas' excellently constructed narrative is dwarfed by his social commentary.

The femininity of the mystic nymph Daphne is juxtaposed and pitted against the hard, unimaginative and very male arena of concrete and legalism. This is sensuality versus bigotry at its most illuminating.

Even Jill Kelly, in portraying the hard-nosed city official, adopts the sartorial trappings of the male -- angular, precise and devoid of subtlety. She is likewise seduced and manipulated by Daphne, sucked into a Dionysian orgy. Gender, after all, can be a state of mind more than a genetic reality.

The message is clear. It is a man's world, until his pants come off. But as an audience we must ask ourselves, is this a good or bad thing?

On the one hand woman is empowered. She can dominate the male race with her sensual wiles. Disregarding gender-biased social norms about female sexuality, Daphne is the paragon of the liberated woman. She is whole, free, and perfectly unaware of the social constrictions placed upon her. If sexuality is a tool, then it is her tool. The woman who uses the instruments at her disposal effectively and without hindrance is not a whore but a self-actualized being.

On the other hand, it can be argued that in acquiescing and accepting the role of love-struck girlfriend, she resigns herself to the very same objectification inherent in the historical oppression of women. By the film's conclusion she has lost the immense influence afforded by her unfettered use of sex for practical gain. She has lost her ethereal quality and demeaned herself with physical existence. She has done this not for herself, but for a man.

And in this vacillation we see Thomas' sole failing. Which Daphne is the real deal and which is merely a straw man erected for the singular purpose of being toppled? The typical answer is of course that the relationship between the two is not so straightforward; that the two conceptions of Daphne are not mutually exclusive. They are however, so disparate that Thomas is on shaky ground attempting to reconcile them.

Despite his genius, and despite his social conscience, Thomas has done a disservice to the very effort he ostensibly seeks to bolster. Daphne in her nascent form is indeed the female ideal. In distorting her, Thomas marginalizes her. He transforms her wanton, independent and carnal desire for the phallus into a submissive stance. She no longer craves, as a man would, as a whole being would. Instead, she craves to be wanted. And in doing so she suffers the ignominy of self-parody.