I have seen WAY too many bad Italian sex comedies, so it's always nice to see one that is relatively clever, satirical, and entertaining (without skimping on the naked Euro-lovelies that make even some of the bad ones worthwhile). During a worldwide energy shortage, a scientist (Gigi Proietti) is trying to harvest the power of sexual passion as an energy source. He is ably, um, assisted by his two gorgeous nurses (Eleanora Giorgi and Adriana Asti), but he seems to get his best results from a couple (Agostina Belli and Christian De Sica), who end up in a hospital room together after they are both injured and whisked away by the scientist's fake ambulance. Both are married to other people, however, so their relationship does not go very smoothly. The movie takes the usual satirical swipes at Catholicism--the slender Belli has a laughably ridiculous number of kids, and the whole project becomes embroiled in the typical Vatican intrigue.
The director Pasquale Campanile Festa directed quite a few superior sex comedies like "The Libertine" (with Catherine Spaak) and "Body of a Girl" (with Lili Carati) as well the superb giallo/terror film "Hitch-Hike" (with Franco Nero, Corrine Clery, and David Hess) and the interesting melodrama "The Girl from Trieste" (with Ben Gazarra and Ornella Muti). This is another superior effort. The two male actors are good, especially Proietti as the scientist who is so obsessed with his sex experiments that he neglects his own beautiful, busty wife (who has to seek the attention of male prostitutes). DeSica basically has the same role he had in "Giovanino"--sex scene after sex scene with beautiful women (must have been tough).
What really makes Italian sex comedies though--both the good ones and the not-so-good ones--are the actresses. Agostina Belli and Eleanora Giorgi, perhaps due to this movie, are often confused in the IMDb pages, but they are definitely two different people. It was Belli who came closer to international stardom with a role in "Bluebeard", the lead in the original Italian "Scent of a Woman", and an appearance with Kirk Douglas in "Holocaust 2000". Giorgi was less well-known, but she had an important part in Dario Argento's "Inferno", and she managed to almost overshadow Ornella Muti when the two of them appeared together in the little-seen "Apassionata". Needless to say, both actresses spend a lot of their screen time here in the all-together. And if there really WERE a "sex machine" like the one in this movies, these two could no doubt light up a good size metropolis all by themselves! Good movie. Recommended.
