La belle et le puceau

Director Massimo Dallamano is undoubtedly best known among cult film fans for his excellent Giallo 'What Have They Done to Solange' and considering the brilliance of that film, it would seem on first glance that he made this little sex comedy merely as an excuse to work with the beautiful and talented Edwige Fenech. While that may well be true (and who could possibly blame him?), this film is actually a little more than merely a vehicle for the stunning actress and has some hidden depths beneath its often goofy exterior. The film focuses on a young man named Tonino Niscemi. He wants to pursue a career as a priest and as such has never had sex with a woman, nor does he have any desire to. However, upon returning home to his father (who supports his son in becoming a priest) and his grandfather (who does not), Tonino finds himself at odds after meeting his father's new wife Carmela; a teasing wench who keeps him fawning after her.

The film is billed as a sex comedy; and indeed several antics reinforce that fact (mostly stemming from the randy grandfather) but much of the film undertakes a serious tone and its clear that the director was keen to explore the sexual awakening of his central character; and it is that which gives the film most of its depth. It has to be said that Roberto Cenci does not exactly cut a likable figure in the central role; he looks a bit too 'green' for my liking and is often unconvincing in the role. This, however, is made up for by the presence of Edwige Fenech who despite not giving her best performance provides a regular distraction whether clothed, unclothed or somewhere between the two. Edwige is at her sultry best while teasing her co-star, as happens often. There's more than enough to keep the proceedings interesting and the side show of over the top characters helps to ensure that. The ending can be seen coming a mile away and provides no surprises; but it wraps things up nicely and while this isn't a 'great' film by any stretch of the imagination, it's certainly well worth a look for Edwige Fenech fans or collectors of Italian sex comedies.

There's no doubt that this movie was inspired by the Salvatore Samperi-Laura Antonelli classic "Malizia" as other reviewers mentioned. But it should be said that "Malizia" really inspired an entire subgenre of "incestuous" Italian sex comedies in the 1970's. Not only were there numerous movies of adolescent boys losing their virginity to step-mothers, aunts, and even step-GRANDMOTHERS (in "Grazie Nonna", another Edwige Fenech vehicle), but there might have been even MORE movies about female adolescent "lolitas" seducing their mother's boyfriends, step-fathers, uncles or even actual fathers! ( I guess they REALLY liked to keep it in the family in 1970's Italy). Of course, in the typical sexist Italian fashion of that era all these ribald stories were told from the point of a view of the male protagonist whether he be an impressionable adolescent pounced on by a "cougar" or a beleaguered older man unable to resist a nubile, underaged vixen. (Perhaps the one exception was the curious Gloria Guida film "Peccati di Juventud" where an oversexed teenage GIRL seduces her step-MOTHER into a LESBIAN affair).

This all may sound pretty unsavory to the uninitiated, but one of the saving graces of these movies was that the "adolescents" in them (with the notable exception of the young boy in the original "Malizia") were obviously quite a bit older than the characters they played. The perennial "lolita" actresses like Gloria Guida, Ornella Muti, and Jenny Tamburi were actually in their early twenties at the time, and their male equivalent this movie, Robert Cenci (who really got typecast in these "younger man" type roles), looked even older than that. Nor, of course, were the "older women" ever typical frumpy middle-age types or for that matter even middle-aged at all (Edwige Fenech was actually only 25 or 26 here).

There's nothing really ORIGINAL about this movie, of course,, but there are two good reasons to see it (well, three if you count each of Fenech's breasts). One, of course, is the gorgeous and talented Fenech, but the other is Massimo Dallamano, who remains THE most underrated Italian genre director of the era. Bava, Argento, and Fulci have always gotten their due, as have Sergio Martino and Ferdinand Dileo more recently. Dallamano, a former cinematographer, died pretty young unfortunately, but he directed a whole string of interesting films in various genres from the late 60's to the time of his death in 1976. A Dallamano film with Fenech is itself worth the price of admission, even in this strange and somewhat disreputable Italian comedy subgenre.

A case could be made for Salvatore Samperi being one of the most influential directors in 1970s Italy. His early films such as Grazie, Zia (1968) and especially Malizia (1973) thematically spawned a barrage of Italian films where fresh-faced, teenaged Italian males lust after stepmothers, maids, friends of mother or older women of some sort. This is no exception. Cenci plays a role that he seems to have inherited from the late Alessandro Momo: the teenager who pines after and finally gets to lay his stepmother (the luscious Fenech playing the Laura Antonelli role). Everyone else fulfills their stereotypes. Caprioli plays the befuddled father and Stander plays a role he played often in Italian films: the horny grandpa. The film is bland for the genre and the climactic sex scene is disappointing. Paint-by-numbers filmmaking and nothing more.

Yet another Commedia All' Italiana in which a gorgeous newlywed seduces her virginal stepson; like similar entries in the distinctly Sicilian genre I recently watched, however, this one fizzles out after a promising (and, in its case, consistently funny) first half.

Still, the oversexed antics of Vittorio Caprioli and, especially, Lionel Stander keep one watching - as does the overeating routine of the former's chubby son. 'Dirty Old Man' Stander's hard-on incident (with resulting scruffy hairdo) and the virginal son's late-night tryst with the local big-breasted momma are the film's tasteless highlights. Besides, the satirical look on seminary priests in the film's initial stages verges on the heretical - as it depicts them watching porn mags, touching one another in class, etc.

Edwige Fenech looks good in the nude, of course, but she plays a largely unsympathetic character here - but, then, the novice stepson doesn't exactly win audience sympathy either (rather incongruously, he keeps score of his father's hit-and-miss bedtime romps). The film features a nice jovial score - pretty much the norm with this type of film (though it does turn kind of serious towards the end, with the spiritual/carnal conflicts afflicting the boy).

Dallamano is another of the "jack-of-all-genres" Italian film-makers, having previously dabbled in Spaghetti Westerns, Gialli and Poliziotteschi and, although I've only watched a couple of his other films myself (see BANDIDOS above), I'd say he usually turned out better movies than this one here.