Le Tango du matelas

When it comes to stereotypes about Italians in the German culture, Rinaldo Talamonti has a lot to answer for. In the early 1970s he appeared in numerous German soft-sex comedies as the ever-ready, ever-willing horny Italian.

Usually these were minor roles but here he takes the lead as Ugo Domani, an Italian 'Gastarbeiter' working as a dustman in Germany. Yes, this is a 'Proletenporno', one of these soft-sexers set in the working class milieu which were rather popular in West Germany in the mid-1970s. In his spare time, our Ugo likes to cycle and one day he gets discovered as a potential professional bike racer (for six-day events, a peculiar specialty in central Europe, mostly Germany). One condition is attached to his racing career: "no sex, please, because you've got to keep your strength".

Giving that our Ugo lives in a shared accommodation and his roommates are at it like rabbits on viagra, this clause in his contract proves rather difficult to keep, especially as a rival racing manager sends out his sirens to squeeze the juice out of our poor Ugo. In other words: this is a stereotypical sex comedy plot, extremely predictable in each of its minor twists.