Top Sensation

This nauseous thriller tells the turpitudes of Mudy (Maud de Belleroche, the French fascist writer), a wealthy owner of a yacht flying the Panamanian flag, cruising in company of a decadent couple acting as her harem, Aldo (Maurizio Bonuglia, Giornata nera per l'Ariete) and Paola (Rosalba Neri, Amuck alla ricerca del piacere).

Aldo and Paola want to get from Mudy an important oil concession, but this should have a price: they have to find the proper way to wake up the mind of Mudy's mentally retarded son Tony (Ruggero Miti, La Rivoluzione sessuale), by awakening his sexual instincts. For the purpose, they have brought aboard the top prostitute Ulla (Edwige Fenech, Cinque Bambole per la luna d'agosto), but Tony is very shy and feels quite ill-at-ease.

Fortunately, or not, the yacht unattended by Aldo is drifted along an isolated island only dwelt by a couple of young yokelish peasants, Andro (Salvatore Puntillo, Il Vero e il Falso) and Beba (Eva Thulin, La Stagione dei sensi). Tony seems attracted by the pretty shepherdess Beba, and becomes talkative with her. Mudy decides to bring aboard the rag-clothed girl and to debauch her so that she could warm up her simpleton Tony, while keeping apart the husband Andro with astounding promises.

But it's never so good for poor people to get mixed up with rich and cynical ones, and playing the Cinderella under such depraved circumstances could actually become perilous: things won't go as they were planned by everybody. Between the dies irae of the opening credits arranged by the composer Sante Maria Romitelli and the Ecclesiastes quotation at the end, the drama, in a precocious Pasolini's Salo-like mood, will tighten up on the protagonists of this hot and stifling seafaring closed circuit. (Viewed in Italian 1h29 version.)

This movie was obviously an influence on the later, more notorious "Island of Death" with it's decadent European tourists despoiling an idyllic Greek island. But where the latter movie crosses the line into being repulsive and genuinely unpleasant, this movie is deliciously nasty, mainly due to the excellent acting of the three female leads. Maud de Belleroche is a hard-as-nails oil heiress who lures a greedy couple (the wife is Rosalba Neri) and a nymphomaniacal prostitute (Edwige Fenech)aboard her yacht (perversely wired with short-circuit cameras in every room) hoping that one of women will seduce her dimwitted son. It's hard to imagine Neri and Fenech not being able to seduce ANYONE but they are both so incredibly, over-the-top sexy here it's understandable that the kid wilts in their presence like a flower in blistering sunlight. He instead falls for an innocent shepherd girl (Ewe Thulin), so the two voluptuous golddiggers set their sights on seducing HER.

This movie is more genuinely erotic than 10,000 porn films. Rosalba Neri shows off her incredible nude body as usual, but she's just as sexy dressed up in a short-shorts and a halter, cruelly blasting away at goats with a shotgun (she has a similar scene in the equally delicious giallo "Amuck", and she really can shoot like a pro). Neri positively oozes sex and evil in equal measure. Edwige Fenech doesn't play a villain as well Neri but she has the most incredible scene in the movie which involves a goat and gives a new meaning to the term animal husbandry. (I don't know if the SPCA would have approved, but I'm sure the goat didn't mind). Then there's an amazing three-way lesbian scene between the two of them and Ewe Thulin that literally seemed to fog up the camera lens (or maybe it was just my eyeballs). What else can I say? Wow!

AKA The Seducers I do like my Italian sleaze and having heard plenty about Top Sensation I was looking forward to watching this entry.The bulk of the film takes place on a luxury yacht owned by a wealthy business woman called Mudy. Also on board are a young couple and a friend of theirs, Ulla (played by the delightfully beautiful Edwige Fenech), and the mentally challenged son of Mudy, Tony. Mudy thinks that by getting Ulla to take her son's virginity it will cure his troubles! This movie is hardly politically correct, and lines such as "Women should be beaten!" only reinforce this. Edwige and her friend Poalo (played by the equally attractive Rosalba Neri) spend most of the time half naked, and are joined later on by another attractive girl called Beba (Eva Thulin), who also gets naked (note - no full frontal nudity). Seeing these three beauties without their clothes on and indulging in soft core sex is pretty much the reason for this movie's existence. For me it did get a little bit boring after a while, however there is one infamous scene involving Edwige and a very lucky small goat that is really worth seeing! As for Mudy she is very butch looking but that doesn't stop her indulging in sex with a younger married man, not to mention a spot of incest! The Mediterranean locations are very nice. This film is NOT a Giallo, Edwige starred in many of these but this isn't one. I started off by watching the dubbed English Language version on DVD but the dubbing was awful, plus it kept dropping into Italian without subtitles, so I would suggest to viewers watch it in its native Italian. More of a curiosity than anything else.

Rosalba Neri, Edwige Fenech and Eva Thulin. All in one film and in and out of their clothes, throughout, I barely need to say any more. And yet, all three perform really well, be it barely clothed or nude and the film moves at a decent pace with constant surprises and sharp dialogue. A middle aged woman (who seems to have a preference for women) owns a smart boat and takes a young couple along with her son and a hooker in an attempt to get the son to recover from his madness by having sex with Fenech (the hooker). As you can see she is as mad as her son, but all get it on in various ways and much fun is had. There is also a shepherd and his young wife (Thulin) and an amorous goat who Fenech seems to take a shine to. This is an early film for Fenech, who would go on to make some classic giallo, but at only 21 she certainly gets stuck into the sex scenes even if Neri steals all the other scenes. She is 10 years older here, a veteran of many films already and assuredly takes centre stage, especially when given a gun to hold! Really good fun.

When I heard this was the film where Edwidge Fenech gets friendly with a goat, I thought she just fed it some oats, maybe gave it some fresh straw to sleep on. Boy, was I wrong! Although I guess she did feed it something...

This hugely daft pile of crazy nonsense called Top Sensation is yet another giallo set on a boat where the female cast lounge around in tiny bikinis. The entire plot of this one seems to be set around getting shy, possibly autistic son of an oil heiress laid to make him a man, but he just wants to play with his toy racing car (that's not a euphemism). Neri and her husband have hired Fenech to do the job but nothing's getting him interested.

Also, the heiress has CCTV in her boat so she can watch folks getting it on, but then Neri's husband can watch her getting it on with Neri (and he gets it on with Fenech). It's a sixties film. They probably all had crabs.

The boat of course crashes on a sandbank and that's when our mob of nymphs find a local goat herder, a lucky goat, and the goat herder's wife, who raises the interest of the heiress's son! It's about this time when Fenech makes a remark about how rough a goat's tongue is...Plus, they have to get that lady herder spruced up for the strange son...and Rosalba needs some sun cream rubbed on her chest...

Of course, this not being a hardcore porn film everything is implied and there's very little by way of nudity, and the plot kind of deviates away from all the sleaze (save for the last five minutes). It's an enjoyable film, not least due to the strange story and the actresses involved, and for a film involving murder, it's all so light hearted.

I wonder if Edwidge's grandkids have ever watched this one? And I also wonder if the subsequently made it illegal for Fenech and Neri to star in the same film (or put the moves on another woman at the same time - my blood pressure!).