Pinocchio

Pinocchio (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Gepetta (Monica Gayle) is a sweet toy making but if also very lonely. So lonely that she's actually still a virgin. One day she makes a wooden boy but knows since he's made of wood there can't ever be anything between them. However, the Fairy Godmother (Dyanne Thorne) brings Pinocchio (Alex Roman) to life but he must stay out of trouble, which isn't easy.

The tag-line for this film is quite good as it points out that it's not just Pinocchio's nose that grows. I'm sure you get it. This film, also known as THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO, really isn't anything special and in fact for an "erotic" film it's rather boring, tame and not all that erotic. As I go through more of these fairy tale "adult" titles it's becoming quite clear that CINDERALLA (1977) was the best of them.

This film here is just poorly made and doesn't feature a bit of energy or excitement. The direction really doesn't do much in regards to making the film entertaining as the sex scenes are all rather boring and there's not too much humor that actually works. The highlights in regards to the humor is how the magic wand from the Fairy Godmother keeps accidentally taking all of her clothes off. Who doesn't want to see a nude Thorne? She's certainly the highlight of the picture as Roman is quite bland in the title role.

With a cast that included Dyanne Thorne, Uschi Digard, Monica Gayle, and Vincene Wallace, this film should have been far more erotic than it was. Very disappointing. The sex scenes, the few that there are in this film, are cut way too short and should have been extended a lot more than they were. Since they aren't, the film kind of falls flat on the erotic front and that's too bad considering the talent especially in front of the camera. A good and very sexy erotic cast is completely wasted. Too bad too as this film could have been an erotic masterpiece but as it stands now, it is a very disappointing erotic effort. The actresses in the cast have beautiful bodies. They go through the motions alright but the sex scenes go by way too fast. What was the rush? If the producers had let the sex scenes play out more than they did, the film would have been much much better. As an example, the sex scene with the great and beautiful Uschi Digard goes by way too fast. When a woman has a body like Uschi, guys want to see her for more than just thirty seconds in a film.

As other reviewers have noted, this movie had the potential to be good, but the direction is so mind-numbing bad that it is not worth watching. In fact, the viewer ought to feel insulted at the way the director insults their intelligence. Every cliché is overplayed, as if it is assumed that the viewer is too stupid to get the joke unless they are hit over the head with it.

I think the filmmakers couldn't decide whether they wanted to do a soft-core porn flick or an adult-themed comedy, so they tried to do a little of both, and ended up doing neither. In fact, it represents the worst of both genres: a soft-core porn that is not erotic and comedy that is not funny.

Monica Gayle is beautiful to look at (as always), but other than that, the film has no redeeming value.