Peccato originale

There was practically a whole(very strange) genre in Italian films of the 70's and early 80's that managed to combine family drama and erotic sexual intrigue (because, of course, there's nothing's more sexy than your relatives). The typical plots involved an adolescent boy being sexually initiated by a step-mother ("Malizia", "Innocence and Desire"), an adolescent boy falling for his slightly older female cousin ("Nene", "Cugini Carnali"), a uncle being enticed by a, usually non-blood related, niece ("Smell of Flesh, "L'Adolescent"), or, the perennial favorite, an improbably sexy teen daughter seducing her improbably sexy middle-aged mother's new husband or boyfriend ("The Seduction" and this movie).

Martine Brocharde plays a widow who has just lost her husband in a snake-bite accident (ookaay). Her teen daughter (Elizabetta Virgili) is out of control, sleeping with and holding contraband for a scummy drug dealer. Somehow she's both a druggie AND a serious aspiring dancer and at one point she ends up disco dancing in a contest, basically topless and in a g-string (Did I mention this is a "Miss Teenage" dancing contest?!). Anyway, the widow becomes involved with a friend of her late husband's (Philip Leroy), hoping he will straighten out her daughter. But she ends up instead trying to straighten HIM out instead as they drink J and B whiskey in her room.

Brochard was a French beauty who toiled for may years in Italian exploitation films (kind of a less successful version of Edwige Fenech). Virgili was apparently a showgirl and nude centerfold. Since the "mother" here was probably in her early to mid thirties and the "daughter" maybe twenty, they're not exactly very believable in these roles, but that's par for the course for movies like this (there both smoking-ass hot, which was no doubt the primary concern). This movie cannot be taken entirely seriously (it's definitely a male fantasy on some level), but it's not a completely ridiculous porn scenario either. It's actually a little lacking in sex (although it has way too much disco dancing), and it manages to turn into a fourth-rate version of "The French Connection" by the end.

Amazingly, this movie just got a legitimate subtitled release in America from the same company that recently released a Gloria Guida flick (the Italian actress who basically invented the promiscuous teenager role Virgili plays here), an Italian "Exorcist" rip-off flick ("Ring of Darkness"), a "scholastic" Italian sex comedy ("Desirable Teacher") and several of the other kinds of 70's Italian-made exploitation trash that has so rotted my mind and shredded my sanity over the years. This film is not anywhere near the class of something like "The Seduction" or "Malizia", but it's probably a lot easier to find right now if you just want to experience some 150-proof Italian exploitation swill.