This one of a large number of early 1970's Italian "decamerotiici" films (50-100 by some estimates!) inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's adaptation of Boccacio's "The Decameron". This is one the few films of this loose genre that has been (somewhat) legitimately released, even if it happens to be under the English name of a COMPLETELY different film (Joe D'Amato's "The Last Decameron"). I am admittedly a fan of this genre--bawdy tales with some amount genuine literary gravitas and spiked with generous modern-day helpings of soctcore sex and T-and-A--but this one is also above average. It contains seven different stories with only a whisper-thin "frame story" ( a bunch washer-women gossiping), so the stories don't ever flag too much and even the weaker ones don't bring the whole thing down.
The first story involves a mother offering a helping, uh, hand to her daughter's new groom when he doesn't know what to do on their wedding night. The second (and lamest) story involves a man trying to get together with his true love whose strict and hulking father keeps her locked up in his impenetrable castle. The third (and longest) story has a newlywed (Rosalba Neri) conspiring to give her virginity to her lover rather than her rich but piggish husband. The lover dresses as a ghost to scare off the husband, but this leads to the intercession of a particularly randy "exorcist". The fourth story (which is perhaps TOO filthy for the original "Decameron") involves a maiden (Christa Linder) who tries to disguise the loss of her maidenhood by claiming a prawn swam inside her. uh. . .well, inside HER. Her mother decides to fish the prawn out using particular type of "live bait" and the girl takes full advantage. The fifth story is a variation of the familiar "put my devil in your hell" tale (actually a story in Bocaccio's "Decameron") where a man finally tricks his bashful bride (Rosemary Lindt) into sex and quickly rues the decision. The sixth story has an escaped convict disguised as a priest seducing an apparently religious wife (Orchidea DeSantis) under the nose of her seemingly oblivious miller husband, but there is an unexpected twist at the end.
The male cast is literally a bunch of unknowns, but the female cast is more impressive. The most famous is Rosalba Neri, who has relatively brief nude scenes, but it kind befits her stature in Italian exploitation. The two transplanted German actresses--Christa Linder and Rosemary Lindt--no doubt saved a lot of money on wardrobe though. So does Orchidea Desantis, who like Linder and Lindt, was in a lot of secondary roles in low-budget Italian films of this era, but she is particularly good in THIS genre since she had the perfect pseudo-homely face and voluptuous body to inspire a whole lot of medieval bawdiness. Unlike Neri, she remains undeservedly obscure today.
Of course, I would recommend this one.
