Makeup Room presents a classical unity of time, space and action, of one day behind the scenes on the shooting of a Japanese adult video (JAV).
The backstage aspect is important: though there are a number of (female) AV performers playing the roles of AV performers Makeup Room is not itself an AV. All of the filming of the sex scenes occurs off screen such that what’s said and heard, including discussions of rape and incest scenes, is more pornographic than what is seen, which amount to a few, naturalistic, flashes of breasts and buttocks.
Most of the comedy is based around the premise that anything which can go wrong will. If it is necessarily exaggerated it also comes across as having groundings in the experiences of the filmmakers.
So, for example, the performer cast in the Lolita/schoolgirl role did not anticipate having so many lines to learn for the part. She and the performer cast as the mother, who has considerably fewer lines, have been made up and costumed for their roles when the matter of the schoolgirl’s having a tattoo comes up. It turns out to be a back-piece impossible to conceal with makeup, such that the performers have to swap roles, appearances and costumes – the last of which, of course, don’t fit...
Or then there’s one performer having unknowingly been cast for a ‘lesbian’ scene and being reluctant to have her long fingernails cut seeing as she’s just spent several thousand Yen having them done. Her partner for the scene is correspondingly reluctant to be fingered by those nails...
The performers and, through this, the director’s handling impress.
Even if the film is maybe slightly over-long you also feel that this is deliberate, thought and worked through. A powerful dramatic scene between the makeup artist and one of the AV performers felt like a natural point of climax, but is followed afterwards by an anticlimactic coda as the community that has come together over the course of the day dissolves itself. Just another day at the orifice for most of those involved.
Showing posts with label sex comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex comedy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 June 2015
Friday, 28 September 2012
Emanuelle in the Country / L'infermiera di campagna
Despite its alternate title this 1978 film has no real connection to the Emanuelle series other than the welcome presence of Laura Gemser and the inevitable nude and softcore scenes featuring her, along with the equally inevitable co-starring role given her real-life husband, Gabriele Tinti.
Gemser's character is Dottoressa Selenia Anselmi, who has recently been appointed as doctor in a small coastal town, Bolsena. Her arrival proves predictably disruptive as nearly every male in the place immediately falls for her, including Marco Rossi, the son of Communist candidate for mayor (Rossi being a common Italian surname, and also meaning red for an obvious political reference), who already in love with the daughter of the incumbent Christian Democrat mayor. Cue Romeo and Juliet(s) as a sex comedy all'italiana...
Gemser's role is much like that played by Edwige Fenech in the Schoolteacher and Nurse films made around the same time. However, whereas Fenech in these films displayed a talent for comedy, Gemser here is her usual blank, if beautiful, self. The notable difference between the two stars approaches is perhaps that whereas the Fenech comedy situation would see her undress for a shower scene, notice those watching her and then react, the comedy in its Gemser equivalent likely focuses on her observers, as she will likely neither notice them nor react.
Does the position of the window and the shot from within the bathroom correspond to the voyeur's POV? I suppose the target audience of the time would neither notice nor care.
The more damaging aspects of the film, however, are the general poverty of the production -- flat direction, clumsy editing and use of library music -- and several scenes of unattractive men and women groping and fumbling. Do you really want to see Aldo Sambrell getting it on, for instance?
Perhaps the most telling presence here, however, is Mark Shannon/Manlio Certosino, later to appear alongside Gemser in Joe D'Amato's Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust. For director Alan W. Cool, a pseudonym for Mario Bianchi, would go on to establish himself as one of D'Amato's main rivals in the Italian hardcore porn cinema/video of the 1980s and 1990s.
Gemser's character is Dottoressa Selenia Anselmi, who has recently been appointed as doctor in a small coastal town, Bolsena. Her arrival proves predictably disruptive as nearly every male in the place immediately falls for her, including Marco Rossi, the son of Communist candidate for mayor (Rossi being a common Italian surname, and also meaning red for an obvious political reference), who already in love with the daughter of the incumbent Christian Democrat mayor. Cue Romeo and Juliet(s) as a sex comedy all'italiana...
Gemser's role is much like that played by Edwige Fenech in the Schoolteacher and Nurse films made around the same time. However, whereas Fenech in these films displayed a talent for comedy, Gemser here is her usual blank, if beautiful, self. The notable difference between the two stars approaches is perhaps that whereas the Fenech comedy situation would see her undress for a shower scene, notice those watching her and then react, the comedy in its Gemser equivalent likely focuses on her observers, as she will likely neither notice them nor react.
Does the position of the window and the shot from within the bathroom correspond to the voyeur's POV? I suppose the target audience of the time would neither notice nor care.
The more damaging aspects of the film, however, are the general poverty of the production -- flat direction, clumsy editing and use of library music -- and several scenes of unattractive men and women groping and fumbling. Do you really want to see Aldo Sambrell getting it on, for instance?
A commentary on Italian politics of the time? -- the Communists and the Christian Democrats in a stand off
Perhaps the most telling presence here, however, is Mark Shannon/Manlio Certosino, later to appear alongside Gemser in Joe D'Amato's Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust. For director Alan W. Cool, a pseudonym for Mario Bianchi, would go on to establish himself as one of D'Amato's main rivals in the Italian hardcore porn cinema/video of the 1980s and 1990s.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Letti selvaggi / Camas calientes / Lady Chatterley's Palace / Tigers in Lipstick / Wild Beds
Given its all-star cast – Sylvia Kristel, Laura Antonelli, Monica Vitti and Ursula Andress as the women, Michele Placido and Roberto Benigni amongst the men – this 1979 sex comedy promises a lot.
Sadly it fails to deliver, thus proving a less than illustrious end to veteran director Luigi Zampa’s career, one stretching all the way back to the 1930s and encompassing all manner of productions.
Each of the female stars features in two story segments, all devoted to the age-old battle of the sexes. Here there is also a contrast between the Italian and English titles, with the Italian Letti selvaggi or Wild Beds proving more apt by virtue of its implicit equal opportunities nature and the English Tigers (Tigresses, surely?) in Lipstick more indicative of masculine fears at the predatory female, a figure who is certainly present, even predominant, but also countered by her male equivalent in the Andress / Placido segment and the male chauvinist professor in Kristel’s second segment.
The first issue is that most of these sketches aren’t really all that funny, having something of a shaggy dog quality to them.
The best, funniest, vignette is tellingly the shortest, as the second of Andress’s characters suddenly whips open her coat in the middle of a crowded strada to reveal that she isn’t wearing all that much underneath, thus precipitating a pile up. The punchline is that she’s in league with the proprietor of the garage that ‘just happens’ to be right next to the scene of the accident...
The second is that there’s something of a split amongst the female leads, between those who are ‘actors’ and those who are ‘bodies’. There’s a tendency to gain on the former count and lose on the latter, and vice versa. What’s less apparent, conspicuous in its absence, is someone who embodies both these virtues, namely an Edwige Fenech.
Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis
There’s no doubting Vitti’s abilities as a comic actress, whether from her other work within the form or her two roles here, but she’s really isn’t one to get her breasts out. Kristel, meanwhile, is happy to display her charms, but really isn’t much of a comic actress.
The other thing here is that none of the female leads are really at their peak, with this a good five or ten years earlier in each case. Andress and Vitti are certainly well preserved, and game, but Zampa doesn’t quite let the former prove her Ayesha-style agelessness as much as I’d (we’d) like.
Spot the Argento connection
In sum, a harmless and moderately entertaining way to spend 90 minutes; it’s just that the cast seems to offer so much more...
Sadly it fails to deliver, thus proving a less than illustrious end to veteran director Luigi Zampa’s career, one stretching all the way back to the 1930s and encompassing all manner of productions.
Each of the female stars features in two story segments, all devoted to the age-old battle of the sexes. Here there is also a contrast between the Italian and English titles, with the Italian Letti selvaggi or Wild Beds proving more apt by virtue of its implicit equal opportunities nature and the English Tigers (Tigresses, surely?) in Lipstick more indicative of masculine fears at the predatory female, a figure who is certainly present, even predominant, but also countered by her male equivalent in the Andress / Placido segment and the male chauvinist professor in Kristel’s second segment.
The first issue is that most of these sketches aren’t really all that funny, having something of a shaggy dog quality to them.
The best, funniest, vignette is tellingly the shortest, as the second of Andress’s characters suddenly whips open her coat in the middle of a crowded strada to reveal that she isn’t wearing all that much underneath, thus precipitating a pile up. The punchline is that she’s in league with the proprietor of the garage that ‘just happens’ to be right next to the scene of the accident...
The second is that there’s something of a split amongst the female leads, between those who are ‘actors’ and those who are ‘bodies’. There’s a tendency to gain on the former count and lose on the latter, and vice versa. What’s less apparent, conspicuous in its absence, is someone who embodies both these virtues, namely an Edwige Fenech.
Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis
There’s no doubting Vitti’s abilities as a comic actress, whether from her other work within the form or her two roles here, but she’s really isn’t one to get her breasts out. Kristel, meanwhile, is happy to display her charms, but really isn’t much of a comic actress.
The other thing here is that none of the female leads are really at their peak, with this a good five or ten years earlier in each case. Andress and Vitti are certainly well preserved, and game, but Zampa doesn’t quite let the former prove her Ayesha-style agelessness as much as I’d (we’d) like.
Spot the Argento connection
In sum, a harmless and moderately entertaining way to spend 90 minutes; it’s just that the cast seems to offer so much more...
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Cornetti alla crema / Cream Horn / Custard Croissants
What? Another Sergio Martino / Edwige Fenech sex comedy.
Well, when they’re as entertaining as Cornetti alla crema / Cream Horn, it would be churlish to complain.
Fenech plays Marianna, an aspiring singer with an estranged, over-possessive pro-football playing boyfriend; oddly the football in question is of the American variety.
She’s rescued from his unwanted attentions by Domenico Petruzzelli (Lino Banfi), a buffoonish businessman who makes vestments for the Vatican and has a shrewish wife (Milena Vukotic) and lazy, fat, idiot son back home in Rome.
Unable to tell Marianna the truth about his own domestic situation, Domenico gives her his best friend and upstairs neighbour Gabrieli Archangeli’s (Gianni Cavani’s) name and number.
In contrast to Domenico and his pure sounding name, Gabrieli’s very much the ladies man, with a raging libido that sees him make love to a different “physical therapist” every night for the good of his purported allergies.
Things quickly start spiralling out of control as Marianna then turns up unexpectedly and Domenico tries to keep her secret from his wife, while Gabrieli tries to explain to his own girlfriends – none of whom knows about the others – that he doesn’t know the new arrival.
Benefitting from a solid ensemble cast and a set-up that allows for all manner of amusing – if predictable – scenarios, most revolving around the family, church, hypocrisies and double standards around public virtue and private vice, and other staples of Italian life and comedy, Cornetti alla crema / Cream Horn is an perfectly constructed example of its form.
While Fenech again showcases her comic talents more than her physical assets, only exposing her breasts on a few occasions, real fans shouldn’t mind, especially when the compensation also includes her doing a drunken rendition of when the saints alongside some prostitutes dressed as nuns.
The supporting cast is also first rate, with Banfi also being a reliable sex comedy trouper – he also appeared in one episode of Don’t Play with Tigers, for instance – and Milena Vukotic having ample experience in the long suffering / long a cause of suffering wife via her similar role in the Fantozzi series. The most surprising performer in this right is Cavina, whom most giallo fans will probably better know for his on and off screen contributions to Pupi Avati’s The House with the Windows that Laughed.
Well, when they’re as entertaining as Cornetti alla crema / Cream Horn, it would be churlish to complain.
Fenech plays Marianna, an aspiring singer with an estranged, over-possessive pro-football playing boyfriend; oddly the football in question is of the American variety.
She’s rescued from his unwanted attentions by Domenico Petruzzelli (Lino Banfi), a buffoonish businessman who makes vestments for the Vatican and has a shrewish wife (Milena Vukotic) and lazy, fat, idiot son back home in Rome.
Unable to tell Marianna the truth about his own domestic situation, Domenico gives her his best friend and upstairs neighbour Gabrieli Archangeli’s (Gianni Cavani’s) name and number.
In contrast to Domenico and his pure sounding name, Gabrieli’s very much the ladies man, with a raging libido that sees him make love to a different “physical therapist” every night for the good of his purported allergies.
Things quickly start spiralling out of control as Marianna then turns up unexpectedly and Domenico tries to keep her secret from his wife, while Gabrieli tries to explain to his own girlfriends – none of whom knows about the others – that he doesn’t know the new arrival.
Benefitting from a solid ensemble cast and a set-up that allows for all manner of amusing – if predictable – scenarios, most revolving around the family, church, hypocrisies and double standards around public virtue and private vice, and other staples of Italian life and comedy, Cornetti alla crema / Cream Horn is an perfectly constructed example of its form.
While Fenech again showcases her comic talents more than her physical assets, only exposing her breasts on a few occasions, real fans shouldn’t mind, especially when the compensation also includes her doing a drunken rendition of when the saints alongside some prostitutes dressed as nuns.
The supporting cast is also first rate, with Banfi also being a reliable sex comedy trouper – he also appeared in one episode of Don’t Play with Tigers, for instance – and Milena Vukotic having ample experience in the long suffering / long a cause of suffering wife via her similar role in the Fantozzi series. The most surprising performer in this right is Cavina, whom most giallo fans will probably better know for his on and off screen contributions to Pupi Avati’s The House with the Windows that Laughed.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Ricchi, ricchissimi... praticamente in mutande / Don't Play with Tigers
There’s quite a difference between the Italian and English titles for this three part sex comedy anthology directed by Sergio Martino.
The Italian, Ricchi, ricchissimi, practicamente in mutande literally translates as rich, richer, practically in (the) underwear, referring to hotter / colder kind of game and thus providing a more apt analogy for the ‘nearly there’ sexual outcomes of the three stories.
They are framed via the device of a day in the life of a court, where the judge presides over the three cases, each presented via flashback narrated by the male accused, incarnated by Pippo Caruso, Lino Banfi and Renato Pozzetto respectively.
In the first he takes his wife and sons to the beach and builds a beach hut but is then understandably threatened and troubled by the presence of a free-living and loving group of French nudists, led by a rather well-endowed man, who have also decide to set up camp there...
In the second he’s a businessman, the owner of a successful sausage factory, who believes he has attracted the attentions of a German contessa, with all manner of farcical antics ensuing as he thus tries to avoid his own family...
In the third he’s another businessman, the owner of an struggling shipbuilders, who sees salvation in the form of persuading an Arab sheik to commission a yacht. Unfortunately the sheikh takes an undue interest in his wife, wanting her to join his harem as the brunette pearl amongst the existing 12 blond ones as part of the deal.
While the second and third episodes also feature Janet Agren and Edwige Fenech respectively, the latter also being paired with her old giallo colleague George Hilton as the Sheikh, fans of the two actresses may be disappointed the lack of actual T&A on display, all of which is concentrated in the first story and of an equal opportunities nature.
If the filmmakers may be accused of playing on stereotypes, particularly in the third episode, this is offset by their fair-minded skewering of various Italian types, whether the judiciary, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat and the various comic reversals and misidentifications that occur as the narratives are resolved.
Here, we might also consider a skit from the contemporaneous British show The Young Ones, representative of a new comedy that purported to reject the racist and sexist values of its predecessor: in an Arab court, the advisor asks the sheikh if he would like to see the foreign ambassador over the subject of their alleged mandatory cruelty. Yes, replies the sheikh. Which bit of him would you like to see? asks the advisor.
Above all, however, is that it is simply funny - and more specifically essentially harmlessly so.
The Italian, Ricchi, ricchissimi, practicamente in mutande literally translates as rich, richer, practically in (the) underwear, referring to hotter / colder kind of game and thus providing a more apt analogy for the ‘nearly there’ sexual outcomes of the three stories.
They are framed via the device of a day in the life of a court, where the judge presides over the three cases, each presented via flashback narrated by the male accused, incarnated by Pippo Caruso, Lino Banfi and Renato Pozzetto respectively.
In the first he takes his wife and sons to the beach and builds a beach hut but is then understandably threatened and troubled by the presence of a free-living and loving group of French nudists, led by a rather well-endowed man, who have also decide to set up camp there...
In the second he’s a businessman, the owner of a successful sausage factory, who believes he has attracted the attentions of a German contessa, with all manner of farcical antics ensuing as he thus tries to avoid his own family...
In the third he’s another businessman, the owner of an struggling shipbuilders, who sees salvation in the form of persuading an Arab sheik to commission a yacht. Unfortunately the sheikh takes an undue interest in his wife, wanting her to join his harem as the brunette pearl amongst the existing 12 blond ones as part of the deal.
While the second and third episodes also feature Janet Agren and Edwige Fenech respectively, the latter also being paired with her old giallo colleague George Hilton as the Sheikh, fans of the two actresses may be disappointed the lack of actual T&A on display, all of which is concentrated in the first story and of an equal opportunities nature.
If the filmmakers may be accused of playing on stereotypes, particularly in the third episode, this is offset by their fair-minded skewering of various Italian types, whether the judiciary, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat and the various comic reversals and misidentifications that occur as the narratives are resolved.
Here, we might also consider a skit from the contemporaneous British show The Young Ones, representative of a new comedy that purported to reject the racist and sexist values of its predecessor: in an Arab court, the advisor asks the sheikh if he would like to see the foreign ambassador over the subject of their alleged mandatory cruelty. Yes, replies the sheikh. Which bit of him would you like to see? asks the advisor.
Above all, however, is that it is simply funny - and more specifically essentially harmlessly so.
Friday, 13 June 2008
Biancaneve & Co. / Snow White and the 7 Wise Men
This 1982 film is an adaptation of the adult fumetti of the same name by Leone Frollo, an erotic, comic version of the Biancaneve – i.e. Snow White – legend, albeit with seven wise men rather than the dwarfs that Anglophone audiences might be familiar with and a foregrounding of the sexual subtexts inherent in the original not-so-innocent tale.
C'era una volta...
After Biancaneve's mother, the Queen, dies giving birth to her the weak willed King (Aldo Sambrell) is tricked into remarrying. A number of years pass and Biancaneve (Michela Miti) blossoms into a beautiful young woman. The wicked Queen / stepmother (Damianne Saint-Clair) resents the threat she perceives Biancaneve represents and hires Jack il silenzatore to murder the girl. Jack, however, is smitten by Biancaneve's and cannot bring himself to kill her. Instead, after taking Biancaneve's virginity he takes a lock of her pubic hair and presents this to the queen as proof that Biancaneve is dead. Unable to return home, Biancaneve wanders the kingdom and has various adventures, invariably putting her in various states of undress...
The wicked stepmother and the king
Biancaneve
The mirror in the TV set
Biancaneve strips for her assassin, Jack the Silencer
Biancaneve meets the seven wise men
Miti is a winning heroine, who brings the right mixture of innocence, playfulness and sexiness to the role. It's a shame her emergence coincided with the decline of the Italian popular cinema as one could well imagine her having become a next generation Edwige Fenech otherwise – or, had the film been made ten years later during the heydey of the Decamerotics, the delightful possibility of seeing Fenech herself in the title role.
Everyone else enters into the spirit of things, with Sambrell effortlessly sleazy as ever and a nice cameo from Oreste Lionello as the sorceror the wicked Queen goes to for help on realising that Biancaneve is still alive.
The familiar magic mirror is replaced with a gold-framed television set, but otherwise performs the same mythic function of answering the wicked queen/stepmother's questions and indicating to her that she is no longer the fairest of all as Biancaneve's beauty blooms, with the magic mirror telephoning the director to check. (Lacanians will probably also have a field day here with the Queen's little secret.)
Another amusing anachronism, besides telephones, projectors and porn films, a prince in a tracksuit and welding gear, sees the queen looking for an assassin to take care of Biancaneve in the giallo – i.e. yellow – pages, where there are also entries for the likes of squartatore – i.e. rippers – before settling on Jack the silencer.
Despite the English lyrics on the catchy theme tune (“Snow White she's a beautiful girl / She's a venus with a pony tail / Put your head in her world / She will give you fun / She never fails”), the film itself is in Italian, without subtitles. It matters because, alongside the visual humour and attractions, there appears to be a lot of wordplay, most of it delivered at screwball comedy speed and much with exaggerated voices: one character is called Stronzolo – i.e. little(r) piece of shit, while one of the wise men's attempts at installing himself as a pimp sees his target say she doesn't need any help from murderers, rippers, thieves or politicians.
Hopefully subtitles will surface some day. Until then...
...e vissero felici e contenti
C'era una volta...
After Biancaneve's mother, the Queen, dies giving birth to her the weak willed King (Aldo Sambrell) is tricked into remarrying. A number of years pass and Biancaneve (Michela Miti) blossoms into a beautiful young woman. The wicked Queen / stepmother (Damianne Saint-Clair) resents the threat she perceives Biancaneve represents and hires Jack il silenzatore to murder the girl. Jack, however, is smitten by Biancaneve's and cannot bring himself to kill her. Instead, after taking Biancaneve's virginity he takes a lock of her pubic hair and presents this to the queen as proof that Biancaneve is dead. Unable to return home, Biancaneve wanders the kingdom and has various adventures, invariably putting her in various states of undress...
The wicked stepmother and the king
Biancaneve
The mirror in the TV set
Biancaneve strips for her assassin, Jack the Silencer
Biancaneve meets the seven wise men
Miti is a winning heroine, who brings the right mixture of innocence, playfulness and sexiness to the role. It's a shame her emergence coincided with the decline of the Italian popular cinema as one could well imagine her having become a next generation Edwige Fenech otherwise – or, had the film been made ten years later during the heydey of the Decamerotics, the delightful possibility of seeing Fenech herself in the title role.
Everyone else enters into the spirit of things, with Sambrell effortlessly sleazy as ever and a nice cameo from Oreste Lionello as the sorceror the wicked Queen goes to for help on realising that Biancaneve is still alive.
The familiar magic mirror is replaced with a gold-framed television set, but otherwise performs the same mythic function of answering the wicked queen/stepmother's questions and indicating to her that she is no longer the fairest of all as Biancaneve's beauty blooms, with the magic mirror telephoning the director to check. (Lacanians will probably also have a field day here with the Queen's little secret.)
Another amusing anachronism, besides telephones, projectors and porn films, a prince in a tracksuit and welding gear, sees the queen looking for an assassin to take care of Biancaneve in the giallo – i.e. yellow – pages, where there are also entries for the likes of squartatore – i.e. rippers – before settling on Jack the silencer.
Despite the English lyrics on the catchy theme tune (“Snow White she's a beautiful girl / She's a venus with a pony tail / Put your head in her world / She will give you fun / She never fails”), the film itself is in Italian, without subtitles. It matters because, alongside the visual humour and attractions, there appears to be a lot of wordplay, most of it delivered at screwball comedy speed and much with exaggerated voices: one character is called Stronzolo – i.e. little(r) piece of shit, while one of the wise men's attempts at installing himself as a pimp sees his target say she doesn't need any help from murderers, rippers, thieves or politicians.
Hopefully subtitles will surface some day. Until then...
...e vissero felici e contenti
Sunday, 27 April 2008
La Pretora / My Sister in Law
There are two reasons why this is the best of Edwige Fenech’s comedies. The first, and most obvious, is that there’s more of her on display than in any of the others. The second, is that by playing a dual role of two ill-matched identical sisters she also gets a chance to show more of her comedic talents than would otherwise be the case.
The story is simple: Viola is the young, ambitious and, above all, beyond reproach prosecutor in a provincial Italian town. Rosa is her identical sister.
Rosa
Viola
Con-artist Esposito, the victim of one of Viola’s most recent judgement, meets and beds Rosa, and decides to extract his revenge; one of the film’s weak points in this regard is that Rosa’s character is not terribly well developed, in that we don’t really know why she has it in for her sister, beyond hints of resentment at their different upbringings and life chances. (Though she plays dumb, there’s the definite sense that Rosa is far smarter than she’s letting on; certainly she’s far smarter than the men around her, though as ever in the world of Italian sex comedy that doesn't necessarily say terribly much...)
Fulci's cameo
Rosa impersonates her sister and take bribes from some local businessmen. Viola guesses that something is up, causing her fiancé Alteri to go see Rosa in an attempt to get her to see the error of her ways, only to easily succumb to her seductive wiles.
Rosa as Biancaneve
Trivia fans may care to note that the evil queen is played by Marina Frajese
Next Rosa appears in a pornographic fumetti strip as Biancaneve, copies of which are distributed to the public during an obscenity case Viola is presiding over in her other capacity as film censor for the town. (An earlier scene featuring the unseen but heard film’s screening is another highlight, with what seems like the entirety of the town’s respectable male population sneaking into the projection booth to see all the good bits before they are cut out.)
The fumetti image
Then Rosa seduces Viola’s long besotted assistant, resulting in some compromising sex in the office photographs courtesy of Esposito and his lawyer Bortolon that soon find their way into the chief prosecutor’s hands.
Rosa or Viola?
Rosa or Viola – and yet another forbidden photo of a lady above suspicion...
Mercifully for Viola a small giallo-esque detail in one of the images provides the opportunity to extricate herself from the messy situation and turn the tables on Esposito and company…
Though Rosa and Viola are given different dubbing voices they aren’t really necessary to disambiguate the characters, with their facial expressions, movements and demeanours enough if the viewer is paying sufficient attention – which, given that the initial distinction between them might well be summed up as close to ‘one wears clothes, the other doesn’t,’ can probably be more or less assumed anyway when the target vernacular audience is concerned…
The other reason for the device, besides its inherent comedic contribution, becomes clearer later on, however, as the difference between the characters and their voices is then confused just at the point when we – and our on screen counterparts – start to think we have a handle on who is who.
At first glance Lucio Fulci’s contribution to the film is somewhat limited, with the direction functional, establishing and breaking up each scene in an anonymous, classical, degree zero style. Paradoxically, however, the lack of Fulci’s usual signatures – zooms, close-ups of eyes, rack focus between planes of action – arguably becomes a signifier of another characteristic of his work, namely his sheer professionalism. One suspects he understood that this was a Fenech vehicle (the end credits include her shoe and lingerie suppliers, to whom credit must go) and as a director for hire willingly subordinated his contributions to hers, whilst also enjoying the opportunity to again aim some well-placed jabs at the powers that be. (Fulci once remarked that censors should be shot in the head; the problem was that their brains were obviously such small targets…)
I suspect that there was also a fair bit of wordplay that I didn’t quite get, though references to sodomy and fellatio prove easy enough to decipher even with my rather limited knowledge of Italian…
Recommended for fans of Fenech and Fulci alike.
The story is simple: Viola is the young, ambitious and, above all, beyond reproach prosecutor in a provincial Italian town. Rosa is her identical sister.
Rosa
Viola
Con-artist Esposito, the victim of one of Viola’s most recent judgement, meets and beds Rosa, and decides to extract his revenge; one of the film’s weak points in this regard is that Rosa’s character is not terribly well developed, in that we don’t really know why she has it in for her sister, beyond hints of resentment at their different upbringings and life chances. (Though she plays dumb, there’s the definite sense that Rosa is far smarter than she’s letting on; certainly she’s far smarter than the men around her, though as ever in the world of Italian sex comedy that doesn't necessarily say terribly much...)
Fulci's cameo
Rosa impersonates her sister and take bribes from some local businessmen. Viola guesses that something is up, causing her fiancé Alteri to go see Rosa in an attempt to get her to see the error of her ways, only to easily succumb to her seductive wiles.
Rosa as Biancaneve
Trivia fans may care to note that the evil queen is played by Marina Frajese
Next Rosa appears in a pornographic fumetti strip as Biancaneve, copies of which are distributed to the public during an obscenity case Viola is presiding over in her other capacity as film censor for the town. (An earlier scene featuring the unseen but heard film’s screening is another highlight, with what seems like the entirety of the town’s respectable male population sneaking into the projection booth to see all the good bits before they are cut out.)
The fumetti image
Then Rosa seduces Viola’s long besotted assistant, resulting in some compromising sex in the office photographs courtesy of Esposito and his lawyer Bortolon that soon find their way into the chief prosecutor’s hands.
Rosa or Viola?
Rosa or Viola – and yet another forbidden photo of a lady above suspicion...
Mercifully for Viola a small giallo-esque detail in one of the images provides the opportunity to extricate herself from the messy situation and turn the tables on Esposito and company…
Though Rosa and Viola are given different dubbing voices they aren’t really necessary to disambiguate the characters, with their facial expressions, movements and demeanours enough if the viewer is paying sufficient attention – which, given that the initial distinction between them might well be summed up as close to ‘one wears clothes, the other doesn’t,’ can probably be more or less assumed anyway when the target vernacular audience is concerned…
The other reason for the device, besides its inherent comedic contribution, becomes clearer later on, however, as the difference between the characters and their voices is then confused just at the point when we – and our on screen counterparts – start to think we have a handle on who is who.
At first glance Lucio Fulci’s contribution to the film is somewhat limited, with the direction functional, establishing and breaking up each scene in an anonymous, classical, degree zero style. Paradoxically, however, the lack of Fulci’s usual signatures – zooms, close-ups of eyes, rack focus between planes of action – arguably becomes a signifier of another characteristic of his work, namely his sheer professionalism. One suspects he understood that this was a Fenech vehicle (the end credits include her shoe and lingerie suppliers, to whom credit must go) and as a director for hire willingly subordinated his contributions to hers, whilst also enjoying the opportunity to again aim some well-placed jabs at the powers that be. (Fulci once remarked that censors should be shot in the head; the problem was that their brains were obviously such small targets…)
I suspect that there was also a fair bit of wordplay that I didn’t quite get, though references to sodomy and fellatio prove easy enough to decipher even with my rather limited knowledge of Italian…
Recommended for fans of Fenech and Fulci alike.
Sunday, 9 December 2007
L' Infermiera / The Sensuous Nurse
The Bottacins – Benito, Iole (Luciana Paluzzi), Italia and Gustavo – have a problem. They want the family winery to go into partnership with the American Mr Kitch (Jack Palance), but need the approval of family patriarch Uncle Leonida, which is not forthcoming.
Leonida then suffers a seizure whilst making love to his mistress. Unfortunately for the rest of the family he doesn’t die, although the doctor’s prognosis gives them hope. Any shock or stimulation could easily trigger another, unquestionably fatal, attack.
The family thus hire sexy nurse Anna (Ursula Andress) in the hope that her ministrations will speed Leonida on his way.
The first problem is that Leonida proves rather more resilient than had been diagnosed.
The second is that Anna starts to have qualms about her appointed mission.
The third is that Adone, Iole’s teenage son, starts to have suspicions that something is up...
Yet another self-referential moments
Given the scenario and the presence of frequent giallo scribe Roberto Gianviti amongst its authors, one could well imagine this 1975 sex comedy being made five years earlier as a giallo. All that would really be needed would be a change in tone, with more double-crosses or an unidentified assassin or three who took a more direct route towards neutralising those whose interventions threatened their inheritance in the manner of, say, Bay of Blood or Five Dolls for an August Moon.
In this regard, it’s worth nothing how Adone actually pointedly reads a Mondadori giallo, Strategia del delitto, at one point, or ex-military man Gustavo’s kink of getting aroused whenever he hears the sounds of battle, as macabre yet played for laughs take on eros and thanatos.
Appealing beautifully to the lowest common denominator ;-)
As a sex comedy the film pushes all the right buttons, delivering what the male viewer wants from its female cast members, most notably in the form of Andress’s slow-motion naked swim, even as it also mocks his on-screen surrogates to create that space for critical distance and reflection for those who need or desire such.
But in the end it is the honest crassness of approach, of knowing exactly what the target audience – not the critics, theorists or the chattering classes in general – want and happily giving them it, that shines through and presents the most appealing aspect of The Sensuous Nurse.
The film is available on Region 0 NTSC DVD from Noshame, with a choice of English or Italian audio and optional subtitles.
Leonida then suffers a seizure whilst making love to his mistress. Unfortunately for the rest of the family he doesn’t die, although the doctor’s prognosis gives them hope. Any shock or stimulation could easily trigger another, unquestionably fatal, attack.
The family thus hire sexy nurse Anna (Ursula Andress) in the hope that her ministrations will speed Leonida on his way.
The first problem is that Leonida proves rather more resilient than had been diagnosed.
The second is that Anna starts to have qualms about her appointed mission.
The third is that Adone, Iole’s teenage son, starts to have suspicions that something is up...
Yet another self-referential moments
Given the scenario and the presence of frequent giallo scribe Roberto Gianviti amongst its authors, one could well imagine this 1975 sex comedy being made five years earlier as a giallo. All that would really be needed would be a change in tone, with more double-crosses or an unidentified assassin or three who took a more direct route towards neutralising those whose interventions threatened their inheritance in the manner of, say, Bay of Blood or Five Dolls for an August Moon.
In this regard, it’s worth nothing how Adone actually pointedly reads a Mondadori giallo, Strategia del delitto, at one point, or ex-military man Gustavo’s kink of getting aroused whenever he hears the sounds of battle, as macabre yet played for laughs take on eros and thanatos.
Appealing beautifully to the lowest common denominator ;-)
As a sex comedy the film pushes all the right buttons, delivering what the male viewer wants from its female cast members, most notably in the form of Andress’s slow-motion naked swim, even as it also mocks his on-screen surrogates to create that space for critical distance and reflection for those who need or desire such.
But in the end it is the honest crassness of approach, of knowing exactly what the target audience – not the critics, theorists or the chattering classes in general – want and happily giving them it, that shines through and presents the most appealing aspect of The Sensuous Nurse.
The film is available on Region 0 NTSC DVD from Noshame, with a choice of English or Italian audio and optional subtitles.
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