What a great concept: Take 4 of the most popular European actresses of the Seventies and pop them into a Italian- style comedy that takes place mostly in bed. Unfortunately, Letti selvaggi" is another one of those anthology comedies with eight separate episodes. It goes without saying that the quality ranges from terrible to okay. You'll get Sylvia Kristel, Ursula Andress, Monica Vitti and Laura Antonelli for two episodes each.
The movie starts off with Sylvia Kristel, playing a seemingly bored girl in a flat on the beach. She lures in a mobile trader who thinks she wants to have sex with him, but there is actually a body she must get rid off and the guy is just her scapegoat. Sylvia Kristel was hot and sexy in the Emmanuelle films, but she definitely was no good actress. Her wooden play is painfully obvious here, and it's up to co-star Orazio Orlando to save this quite promising episode that in the end suffers from bad writing and bad acting.
Next up, Ursula Andress as a grieving widow, visited by a journalist. He can convince her to pose for some pictures which then evolves into a whole striptease. No fun here, no gags, no surprises, no twist, nothing. A waste of time.
Next. A (weirdly dubbed) kid asks hooker Monica Vitti to act as his mother and bring him to school. She agrees, but in the principal's office she must find out that the kid is a terrible pupil. What an awful episode! Vitti is actually a good actress, so is Roberto Benigni, but there is no way they could save this pointless nonsense.
Then Laura Antonelli as the beautiful wife of a distrustful old jerk. It's only about two minutes long and the less said about it, the better.
Back to Kristel, playing the wife of a nutty professor who is constantly quarreling about her lack of quality as a cook and in bed. Kristel's acting is even worse than before. But it fits this horrible ordeal of an episode.
Then Andress in a very short one: To boost business of a garage, she'll strip in lingerie on the nearby street, causing a huge pile-up. Watchable, but also forgettable.
The second Vitti outing is surprisingly good and while the storyline is ridiculous, it is also high-paced and more or less entertaining. Vitti as a jewel thief who is after an invaluable necklace. She doesn't know yet that another crook is already close on her heels. Vitti and Co-Star Michele Placido harmonize quite well and the episode definitely benefits of the two.
Then we have the final episode with Laura Antonelli, and they saved the best for last. In fact, this one even saves the neck of the whole movie. A shy orchestra conductor meets a beautiful woman on the street and to his surprise, she agrees to dating and shows up at his home a little later. While there is something going on between the two, this Giovanna is a pure businesswoman and she has calls and meetings one by one. Not much time for a romance, and actually Giovanna is more in need of a servant than a lover. The story then shows the two constantly rushing around while trying to make out in some two-minutes-slots. This is quite funny, at a very high pace and with good actors. Jose Sacristan is a nice guy and quite likable, but it's of course the fantastic Laura Antonelli who makes this worth watching. Once more she proves her talent for comedy, she is bursting with energy, as always pleasing to the eye, and there are a couple of lingerie scenes thrown in.
Overall, it's hard to rate these anthology comedies as impartially as possible, but I doubt this could have appealed to audiences back in the day. Especially the first episodes are just awful and I know dozens of Italian comedies of the Seventies outclassing this totally. Best thing to do is probably to skip all this rubbish and go for the last two episodes only. To those I would give 5 and 6 stars, if watched separately.
