Die Puppen

This semi-amusing sex (romance) comedy has four separate stories of equal quality, with the first one being slightly better. The 1st episode with the enchanting Elke Sommer is lovely and touching and if there is an actress with a sweeter smile than Ms. Sommer's, I don't know who it is.

The 2nd one about a love-starved husband trying to get his wife's attention while she reads or talks on the phone is a crack-up. Nino Mandredi (husband) is brilliant with his comic timing and frustration and the gorgeous Virna Lisi is stunning as always.

The 3rd one with the lovely Monica Vitti runs out of steam but Monica Vitti was a wonderful presence in foreign films of the 1960's.

The 4th with the curvaceous and sexy Gina Lollobrigida (with either blonde or red hair) is helped immeasurably by the bovine presence of Akim Tamiroff. None of these episodes are classic, but I spent a pleasant 2 hours watching them. These "teasing" "sex" comedies have a life of their own, although I wish Elke Sommer hadn't been dubbed. Oh well! A 5 out of 10.

My rating of 10/10 of course applies only if you're a horny teenage boy. Considering that the movie stars Elke Sommer, I probably don't need to explain the plot (the sexual exploits of a bunch of women). I can also note that Virna Lisi, Monica Vitti and Gina Lollobrigida co-star, and...you know something? Let me explain in the next paragraph.

The skin flicks of the 1960s were cool, but what they should have done in, say, 1966 was make one big movie starring Marcello Mastroianni, Dick Van Dyke, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Sean Connery, Buck Henry, Tippi Hedren, Larry Hagman, Robert Reed, Elizabeth Montgomery, Tina Louise, Barbara Eden, Paul Naschy, Sophia Loren, Bob Denver, Connie Hines, Jack Nicholson, Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, Elke Sommer, Faye Dunaway and Sandra Dee all having a big orgy (if you don't know who some of those people are, then shame on you*). I would have paid to see that kind of movie! *Just kidding! It's probably sort of weird that I know who every one of those individuals is! But I still would have paid to see that kind of movie.

Italians are good sexy story telling. And this picture is not the exception. There are four story with 4 of the biggest sex symbol of the sixties. Virna Lissi, ELke Summer, Monica Vitti and Lollo. The number too and three are only ok. But is terrible funny and sexy the first and last story. The first one is about a young marriage of a gorgeous mommie's girl (Virna Lissi) and a terrenal man (Italian capocomic Ninno Manfredi. He wants have sex with his young babe, but her mother called. And she prefers to talk with her mum that be care of her husband. So he decide to have sex with the more complacient neighbor. And number 4 of one of the most beautiful women of all Ttime Gina Lollobrigida who play a wife who wants to seduce the innocent bishop's nephew(Jean Sorel. Lollo here shows all her histrionic (excellent comediant) and physical (see in that suit)talent.

Italians were always fond of episodic comedies, and this falls right into the heydays of this genre, the 1960s. For its time it was regarded quite juicy, both in the subject matter (love, wooing, seduction, etc.) and its visual realisation; Ms. Lollobrigida even got into some trouble with the authorities over her sexy dress. Clearly, times have changed - just three or four years after it was made nobody would have raised an eyebrow. The film 'feels' a bit like "Sex in the City (1998)" transferred into a 1960s mediterranean environment.

Changing attitudes is more a problem than an asset for the film today: it needs to unease and shock people just a little in order to keep its audience on the edge, without alienating a mainstream crowd. If the shock's gone much of the interest's gone. What remains is an interesting document of morals in the mid 1960s.

Unfortunately, the Amazon release (double feature with Sweet Ecstasy) has rather poor picture quality and can only be recommended for Lollobrigida-completists.

OK, just a nice pastime, nothing memorable. But if you do get to see this one, enjoy gorgeous Virna Lisi (how beautiful and sexy she was!) lazily talking on the phone with her mother while husband Manfredi tries to make love to her. See Lollobrigida's determination to woo young religious Sorel, with delightful Akim Tamiroff clowning around. See Monica Vitti's turn of the table playing an utterly unglamorous but very funny rôle, showing the supreme comedienne she is. Unfortunately, only Elke Sommer's episode is just a one-joke unfunny bit. But one thing is certain: they sure don't make beautiful and accomplished stars like these anymore!!