Les mille et une nuits érotiques

While I would generally prefer a peplum actioner to a period sex comedy, it was odd for cult director Margheriti to be more successful at the latter – at least judging by the two lacklustre entries I watched recently from the former genre! Anyway, this film attests to the influence of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Trilogy Of Life" – made between 1971 and 1974 – since a myriad such bawdy efforts, collectively dubbed "Decamerotics", emerged around this time on his home-ground! It can be seen here not just in the episodic structure of the narrative, but also the outré costumes and ornate production design; Carlo Savina's score, then, could well have served your traditional Arabian Nights fantasy…

The movie involves an impotent(!) potentate, even if his current flame is the gorgeous Femi Benussi; his adviser then suggests that he be told a series of arousing tales which might help him regain his much-desired virility. This leads us to the re-enactment of the stories themselves: a middle-aged womanizer has a magic mirror which assures him he is at the top of the heap in his line – but, inevitably, at one point he begins to lag behind; so he brings the young man who has usurped his title in order to verify his claims. The latter even boasts that he can recognize any woman who shares his bed while blindfolded; when he really proves his mettle at this, it is decided that the older man's wife sacrifice herself to the cause – the ruse being that, if he guesses her identity, it means he is her lover and her husband can put him to death for it and, of course, if he fails to name her, he is still condemned! However, he still comes out on top – because he tells his rival/judge that it could only be his wife given that she was the only woman in town he had not yet had!

This is followed by the amorous adventures of Aladdin (not the one who found the magic lamp, but a relative way down the line – only the genie is still the same!); the latter's depiction as a Godfather-type figure is a most inspired touch. The boy's love interest is the wife of yet one more eminent citizen, played by another "Euro-Cult" starlet i.e. top-billed Barbara Bouchet; to enter her boudoir, Aladdin adopts the gift of invisibility and, to literally transport her away from her husband's bed, uses a magic carpet (incidentally, this had already been featured in Margheriti's just-viewed THE GOLDEN AROW {1962}). However, on one occasion, it is the old man who hitches a ride on the rug – and, since it cannot land before the relationship between its occupants is consummated three times, the boy ends up an unwitting court favourite for services rendered to the ruler! Given that none of the accounts do much to alleviate the male protagonist's predicament, he has the raconteurs beheaded on the spot…but the last one, told by a coloured woman, about a blonde nymphomaniac who meets her match in her current fruit-gobbling lover (only he keeps changing places with his many twin brothers conveniently hidden up in the trees!), works in surprising ways – as she shows a definite romantic interest in Benussi herself, the man finally joins in and, we are informed, so was born the practice of ménage-a'-trois!

The film is nothing special, mind you, but it certainly looks good and is harmlessly enjoyable under the circumstances – the nudity is not too explicit but, most amusing of all, is the application of the Mediterranean temperament (obviously familiar to me!) to the typical Oriental lifestyle.

This is an Italian "decamerotici", basically a portmanteau-style movie of sexy, period-based tales inspired by Pier Passolini's "Decameron" and other "trilogy of life" movies. While some of these "decamerotic" were loosely based on Boccacio's famous literary work "The Decameron" (via the Pasolin film), this is very, very loosely based on "1001 Arabian Nights". It is set in Arabia and the characters are all costumed accordingly, but sex-minded stories, the obsession with female sexual satisfaction and cuckoldry, and gay-panic humor in the second story are all VERY 20th-century Italian .

The frame story involves a powerful sultan who is unable to, um, rise to the occasion with a new harem girl (Femi Benussi) even after she does a very sexy "dance of the seven veils" for him (if THAT doesn't do it. . .).He brings in three storytellers to, uh, inspire him with sexy tales. The first story is about another powerful sultan who become jealous of the town stud and wants to test his prowess by putting him in a dark room and seeing if he can identify each of several town girls who he sends in to have sex with him. But it all goes horribly awry. The second story is a variation on Aladin and the genie, but Aladin here is a horny sod who really only wants to have sex with the wife of a rich merchant (Barabara Bouchet--who could blame him?). The magic flying carpet the genie gives him will not "go down"(nudge, nudge) until the couple on it have had sex three times. But what happens when the wrong people end up on it? The third story is about a cruel princess who executes any man who can't satisfy her thirteen times in one night (kind of an Arabian version of "Ilsa,She Wolf of the SS", I guess).This is the funniest of the stories, mainly because the guy that takes up the challenge does a spot-on parody of Clint Eastwood in "A Fistful of Dollars"!

This was directed by Anthony Dawson (aka Anthony Marghereti). He is not in the class of Pasolini perhaps, but he was probably one of the more talented directors to have done films in this genre. Although neither was Italian, Barbara Bouchet and Femi Benussi were both ubiquitous (and ubiquitously naked) in 70's Italian exploitation fare like this. Barbara Marzano, who some may recognize as the big-breasted girl dancing topless at the hippie party in "Torso", plays a local girl in the first story who the Sultan tries to "dehydrate" so the guy in the room doesn't recognize her bounteous bosoms (it doesn't work). She was also memorable in Ferdinand DiLeo's "The Seduction". The print I saw of this was in French with English subtitles ("based on the original Italian-language print", it said?). But it looked pretty good, and I'm always glad to see one of these at all.

The enlightened Italian producers had conceived and stablished in advance this spicy genre sexploitation better than anybody in entire world, for many decades they hold this demanded niche for themselves, meanwhile this genre still was crawling in others countries, further they blend it in Giallo in late sixties neither, to keep on the top the filmmakers worked so hard to research the gorgeous girls available to make this odd jobs in Italy and adjoining countries as many that appeared in the movie like the beauties Barbara Bouchet and especially the Croatian-Italian Femi Benussi, who usually works in this kind of sexploitation for many years.

The production starts when a Sultan becomes impotent on sex-night with dazzling beauty Zumurud (Femi Benussi) upon this neuralgic matter the Sultan demands a clever storyteller shares him a peppery story aiming for raises the Sultan's spirits, the first one about a far off Kingdom where a Prince is no longer the most powerful one, a humble villager is regarded the best lover ever since, thus the Prince's advisor requires a test to ensure such report, although the outcome wasn't they expected whatsoever.

The second tale concerns in a young Alladin who lost his beloved girlfriend Marian (Barbara Bouchet) to an elderly wealthy man, thru lamp's genius he gets a magic-carpet where every night he takes Marian to a sex-night on flying-carpet, it didn't landing if Alladin makes sex at least thrice, one night by mistakes the elder man comes flying instead Marian weakling a trouble to settle in the air, due the magic-carpet won't landing until them make sex, who will act Marian's hard labor anyway?

The Third and last segment is about a veracious Princess that usually every single year offers to someone interested to be a Prince if such applicant must endures all night long making sex, just in case if didn't make he'll be his head off on first hour morning, oddly enough he accomplished the hard task, he really did?

As far I know it never come out in Brazil in any format, would be too much to ask, quite sure will be a smashing market sales a box with several sexploitation from Euro, in fact I have a special spot to store it, there is a plenty space.

Thanks for reading.

Resume: First watch: 2013 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.5.

I was thrilled when I unexpectedly found a DVD-copy of "House of 1.000 Pleasures". These typical Italian sex-comedies of the seventies are reasonably hard to come by (at least, harder than Italian horror or crime films from the same era) and this title in particular sounded like a genuine highlight. Something that is called "House of 1,000 Pleasures" AND is directed by Antonio Margheriti AND stars two of the most ravishing contemporary Italian wenches in guaranteed topless roles simply must be a pure gem, right? Well, not necessarily. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed by the story, quality of the individual tales, the number of genuinely funny sequences and – most of all – the nudity and soft-core sex footage. This is a so-called portmanteau film. In the wraparound story, a ridiculously wealthy and eccentric Arabian Sultan has a big problem. On the first night after his wedding with a beautiful wife, he … well … can't get it up! Acclaimed poets, writers and story-tellers are hastily summoned to the palace in order to narrate erotic tales to this Sultan and his wife. If the tale manages to excite him, the narrator will receive a giant reward, and if not, they lose their heads! The first tale is a sort of variation on "Snow White", with a sleazy emperor asking his magic mirror every morning who's the most viral stud of the country. He's used to hearing that he still proudly wears that title, until one morning the mirror claims there's a new stallion in town. The emperor invites his rival to the palace for a seduction contest. The first tale is rather tedious, forgettable and not at all funny. The second tale is slightly better, but still not living up to my expectations. This one is more of a re-imagining of the "Aladdin" story, complete with genies and magic flying carpets. It's overall boring, but at least this segment features a handful of admirable special effects. The third and last tale is finally an entertaining one, albeit still very predictable. It tells about a young nymphomaniac princess who demands that her future husband is able to make love to her 13 times (!) between the hour of midnight and dawn. Many potent young studs already took up the challenge, but no one succeeded and now they lay in the graveyard with their heads separated from the bodies. A brave and handsome young man is set to give it another try, with lots of energy in his pants, and a few clever tricks up his sleeve. Anyone can guess the twist-ending on this one, but at least the story is well- developed, funny and benefices from the best acting performances of the entire film.

Watch this movie, you'll like it. This is funny, but not blunt; sensual but not pornography; fable-based but never too far away from "reality".

If you merely watch it to have a nice funny time, you can have it all the way through. But if you are film-buff, with inclination for "serious stuff", believe me, there's something in for you too. For example, just have a look at the very first shots. The sense of color contrast and sheer idea of perspective of the 5 opening minutes will make you remember Jodorowski's 'The Mole'. Title music sets you up appropriately with lots of typical Arabic movements. A look at the set and costumes will suggest the presence of adequate sincerity that should mark a period movie.

Humor forms the pivot of this movie. But its not cheap and blunt humor. Director Antonio Margheriti has done a good job by maintaining the level of subdued humor (almost) intact throughout the entire course of the movie.

Filming fairy-tales, and that too extremely popular ones, isn't the easiest of the jobs. In many of the cases, they tend to become stale. But this one stays afloat all along. It seems to me that staleness of the contemporary fairy-tale movies can largely be attributed to the use of unbridled and incessant stream of 'special effects'. Pleasant absence of these dreadful 'special effects' makes this movie even more watchable. Primitive versions of 'special effects', as have been tried in a few cases here, do not let your jaw drop in assessing the absurdity, it merely makes the viewing enjoyable.

Nonetheless, even with all these features, movie becomes tad monotonous as it progresses; but the uni-dimensionality of the fable would have to be blamed for that. Mind you, level of this monotony never reaches (even half of) the threshold as to prompt you to not view it.

There's a thin line that separates erotic story-telling from pornography. This line was never breached here. As a result, the film remains pleasing till the end.

All the basic ingredients of a good movie can be found here. While one shouldn't call it a masterpiece, this can surely be considered within the select set of top-class fable-oriented and/or fantasy-oriented movies.

All in all, if you want to spend a lazy weekend afternoon with a movie that does not demand a great level of concentration and is funny without being cheap, this fits the bill perfectly.