L'emprise des sens

SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL is an odd little Italian drama, playing out in part as a Eurocrime movie complete with Richard Conte as a mafia boss. However, for most of the running time this is a slow-moving character drama involving Edwige Fenech's unlucky in love girl, who falls in with a real creep of a character before finding love elsewhere - but is it too late? Drug smuggling and prostitution are the order of the day here, none of it particularly appealing, and as usual the only thing they know to do with Fenech is make her strip. The ending is unique, I'll give it that.

Anna (Edwige Fenech, Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer, excellent giallo from the same), is a young pub cashier in a small asleep provincial town (Bergamo), when arrives Guido, a gangster (Corrado Pani, Interrabang), seeking for "a bit of fresh air" after tough fights. She falls under the charm of the bad boy with a smart sport car, whom male glance quickly captives her hunted doe eyes, and as he "can do whatever he likes with her", he brings her to the big city (Milan) to lead the bright life of the mob. But there she has soon to prove her fidelity to the big boss (Richard Conte, The Godfather) by working as a luxury prostitute. Getting pregnant, she manages to flee in Rome while her violent lover is being arrested. Here she meets Lorenzo, a nice doctor (John Richardson, I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale), who cures her son, and they ineluctably fall in love.

Shall she be able to choose between life (Lorenzo) or death (Guido)? «What will be the real Anna like?» Wandering her states of mind among the dangerous games of the mafia, Edwige Fenech gorgeously performs in a sensitive role in which she stands for all the possible figures of a woman. The distribution, with a bunch of these solid Italian actors of the time, will help her to accomplish her destiny.

This film is really boring i watched it because of Edwige Fenech so i was not completely disappointed or any thing like that as it was still amusing watching her. Still though you'd be better watching some of the gialli she did with Sergio Martino than watching this one.

One interesting thing though, there is one scene where we see the interior of the doctor's bedroom and in it he has hanging on the wall a poster of Angela Davis. Pretty nice.

While I can't really rave about this move, I also certainly can't say it wasn't interesting. On one hand, it is a typical "poliziani", a hard-boiled and violent Italian crime thriller about Mafia criminals and corrupt or vigilante police, but on the other hand, it is also a women's picture featuring no-clothes-horse Edwige Fenech in one of her more dramatic (as opposed to hysterical) roles.

Fenech plays Anna a young, naive provincial woman who falls in love with a brutal and abusive gangster who, at the behest of his godfather (top-billed Richard Conte)involves her first in smuggling then in prostitution. She tries to leave the life after her mobster hubby goes to prison. She gives birth to a son and falls in love with a respectable doctor, but of course her past soon catches up to her.

This is a rather schizophrenic movie. It is has the typical violence of a poliziani, and Fenech performs her usual quota of nude/sex scenes (the most interesting scene though features not Fenech, but a bizarre stripping clown--that's right, a clown). The ending though is incredibly sappy and tear-jerking. I can't imagine anyone who liked the early part of the movie liking the end and vice versa. I suppose it could be a good date movie for women who want to see Fenech emote and men who want to see Fenech undress (it beats the hell out of a Renee Zellweger romantic comedy, anyway).

Terrible English language title but what do you do if you have the delectable Edwige Fenech featuring in a fairly ordinary gangster movie, in which she strips several times - to great effect? The film actually begins well and it is a surprise just how violent is her mobster lover towards her. Beginning with real passion and some swirling and effective film-making it is rather a shame that the last section has to rely upon the dubious interest of her and her child and her doctor lover. Nevertheless the shootings at the very end are impressive and surprising and there can be little mistake that this is 70's film drama Italian style with all the mixed emotions that was bound to stir up.