Le sexe des anges

Il sesso degli angeli (1968), also known as The Sex of Angels, is a visually striking Italian thriller that promises more than it ultimately delivers. While boasting an intriguing premise and gorgeous cinematography, the film struggles to maintain its momentum, resulting in a somewhat uneven viewing experience.

The film's strongest asset is undoubtedly its lush, sun-drenched visuals that capture the allure of the Adriatic coast. Director Ugo Liberatore, making his feature debut, demonstrates a keen eye for composition and an ability to create an unsettling, dreamlike atmosphere through clever camerawork and lighting. The jazzy score by Giovanni Fusco also adds to the film's seductive, yet ominous tone.

Unfortunately, the narrative itself fails to live up to its provocative setup. What begins as a tantalizing psychosexual thriller about three wealthy women who kidnap a stranger for a drug-fueled weekend loses its way in the second half. The pacing slows to a crawl, and the characters' motivations become increasingly muddled and implausible. The performances are solid, with Rosemary Dexter as the unhinged ringleader making a particularly strong impression, but they can't fully compensate for the script's deficiencies.

While far from a complete misfire, Il sesso degli angeli never quite capitalizes on its intriguing premise or stylistic flair. It remains a fascinating cult curiosity from the psychedelic era and an interesting early entry in Liberatore's filmography. However, its inability to sustain its initial sense of dread and eroticism relegates it to the ranks of a flawed, though visually arresting, minor giallo/thriller.

Director, Ugo Liberatore's first film of only half a dozen or so and I have been meaning to watch his 1970 May Morning but its about bullying at oxford and I've been putting it off. This, however, is very much 1968 and has been quickly slipped into my 'Acid Erotica' list. Not that there is much skin on display here. The girls seem almost paranoid about revealing anything and are very careful how they slip their bikinis off and on. This is partly because the story seems to have them less than worldly and it seems very odd that whilst we have an LSD trip depicted (well, set up and the consequences thereof depicted) the girls do express real anxiety regarding loss of virginity. Almost the entire film takes place upon Daddy's yacht and has been mentioned by another, is reminiscent of Top Sensation and Interrabang, two superior films. Pleasant enough and whether the girls were told to act and look at each other so strangely or thats just the way they are, I don't know but it is rather unsettling at times.

Three privileged young women more or less steal a yacht for an impromptu trip from Vienna to the Yugoslavian coast, and for further entertainment purposes also sorta-kidnap a handsome young man they've barely met. Unsurprisingly, jealousies and strife break out, there is violence, and eventually mortal peril surfaces. The problem is, most of that action happens offscreen--what's onscreen is just a lot of pretty people in skimpy bathing suits arguing. No one is particularly sympathetic here, and their company is tiresome enough that the runtime feels much longer than it is. Halfway through the characters take LSD, and you think "At last! Something will happen, and there will be visuals beyond pretty people and pretty scenery!" Then the film cuts directly to the morning after, when no one remembers what happened while they were high. What a letdown. Then the squabbling resumes.

I get it that in 1968, a high degree of exposed skin and characters talking this casually about sex and their own lack of morality would have been very new, enough to at least somewhat justify the whole otherwise rudderless enterprise. But now the effect is just boring. It's not that these actors are bad, or unattractive, it's that they aren't allowed to be interesting--they're playing spoilt adults brats whose fate we don't care about, and that in itself doesn't make any meaningful point about society or whatever. The suspense elements are too inertly handled to generate any tension at all. If the film had consisted of these four actors sunbathing for two hours, it wouldn't be very different, because that's exactly what it FEELS like.

Curiously, the very same year there was a now-largely-forgotten British film called "The Touchables" that was also about several very fashionable, superficial young women who kidnap an attractive young man and hold them captive for similar "sharing" purposes (this time in an inflatable plastic "dome" in the countryside). That movie is not exactly "good," but it is definitely fun in a datedly mod, psychedelic, wildly aestheticized way. Whereas "Sex of Angels" survives as nothing more than a testament to sun, scenery and near-nudity, things that have not gotten more compelling with age.

In the late sixties, you couldn't go for a nice beach holiday anywhere on the Adriatic without having your nice sea view marred by the endless masts of yachts steered by skinny Euro babes in tiny bikinis. You'd be sitting there with your pint of Union Grand beer, trying to take in the gentle wash of waves while a bunch of burnt out rich pseudo hippies squabbled about 'turning on', 'making it' and 'murdering each other' while revving their engines. Your kids would be poking a jellyfish with a stick one minute then blindly staggering about trying to remove some German hunk's grundies that have blown onto their face, rudely thrown from the stern of a ship.

The Sex of Angels features neither a great deal of sex and certainly no angels, but is another tale of why you probably shouldn't head off into the Adriatic with a complete stranger and a whole load of LSD. There's Nora (spoiled rich kid), Nancy (virgin, won't stop going on about it, wants her 'first to be a negro', and Carla (lesbian, loves Nancy, not reciprocated) and Marco, who's technically kidnapped into being there for reasons I can't quite figure out. He's off to Venice with the girls!

After much dialogue and such like, we do eventually get to the point where the quartet take LSD, which is when some sort of a plot develops too. You see, everyone wakes up the next day feeling a bit rough, Marco has his face painted black, Nora's having a bad trip and someone's been shot in the stomach and needs medical attention. No one can remember anything, but maybe that tape recorder they set up might help…

And thus we have our mystery, but strangely for a giallo we don't get any particular twist. Things just play out as they are for the remainder of the film, which is kind of refreshing as we got people dealing with the aftermath of an nasty even in their own way. Just like the other two films set on Yachts I've watched recently (Interrabang and Top Sensation) the film looks great and the music is awesome too, with an added bonus of an inventive credits sequence.

I recently watched the Italian crime thriller 🇮🇹 The Sex of Angels (1968) on the Full Moon app on Prime. The storyline follows three stunning Italian women who, after a night of indulgence with an Italian playboy, decide to take him on a ride where his wealth and freedom are at stake.

Directed by Ugo Liberatore (Bora Bora), the film stars Bernard De Vries (Erika), Rosemary Dexter (Eye in the Labyrinth), Doris Kunstmann (Funny Games), Giovanni Petrucci (Death Rides a Horse), and Laura Troschel (The Blind Fly).

This is one of those films that you hope will be more creative than it turns out to be. Yes, the women are beautiful, and the Mediterranean backdrop is undeniably gorgeous. The setup of the plot had potential, but there are some cheesy elements throughout. The "Virgin" subplot felt especially corny. Surprisingly, there wasn't as much nudity as one might expect from a film of this nature. The portrayal of LSD use and its effects, were hilarious. The ending, unfortunately, was too straightforward and predictable.

In conclusion, The Sex of Angels aims for cleverness but misses the mark. I'd score it a 4/10 and recommend skipping it.