Candido erotico

An usual sex drama about a part-time male model (Mircha Carven) who also performs live sex acts on stage for a living. The story starts when he befriends the teenage daughter (Lilli Carati) of one of his friends and occasional lover, a female photographer (Maria Baxa).

First, the viewer is seduced in thinking that this is one of those 'the parents are against us' love dramas, a kind of Romeo and Juliet in a more exploitative setting. However, this is a deliberate red herring. We are slowly introduced into the actual topic of the film which is a little sex problem our hero suffers from. Alone in bed with Carati he's useless (at which point I should make a flippant remark about how this proves the seriosity of his condition).

The viewer only becomes slowly aware of the extent of his problem by a sequence of events which make it increasingly clear what is going on. This easily sees us through the film and also is the basis for an interesting climactic ending.

All in all, a superior example of a sex drama, in much darker mood than its genre relatives.

Since I am suffering from a strange fetish for barely legal Italian starlets from the 1970's (well, maybe not "suffering". . .), I have seen any number of films now featuring the lovely Lili Carati, who started out as a Miss Italy finalist and eventually ended up as a drug-addled hardcore porn star. This is one of her first movies and she looks strangely demure and innocent here. The story resolves around a male sex performer in Copenhagen, Denmark who does work on the side as a model for a female photographer (and former lover). He spots a nude photo of her stepdaughter (Lili Carati) and decides to seek her out. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with the older women, or with her husband (although the latter can't say much about it since he has just paid the man to have sex with his wife while he watches). In an unbelievable turn of events though it turns out though this guy can't, uh, "perform" WITHOUT an audience. You can pretty much imagine how it ends.

This is a fairly classy film and NOT hardcore porn (which Carati wouldn't become involved in until the late 80's). The sex show scenes, which take up large amounts of the film's running time, seem ridiculously pretentious (but then again I've never attended a live sex show in 1970's Copenhagen). Carati looks really good and spends half the movie in her tight little birthday suit (as usual), and no one would kick the woman who plays her stepmother out of bed for eating crackers either. African-American ex-pat (and alleged transsexual) Ajita Wilson also has a non-speaking role as one of the sex performers. Not really good, but better than most of these kind of films I guess.

Very well shot and put together, this has a fine mix of Copenhagen street scenes, stage show interiors and studio filming. Problem one, is that this 'sex comedy starring Ajita Wilson' is not a comedy and only features Ajita in the smallest of non speaking roles. Problem two, is we are asked to take this tale very seriously, accepting the pathos and sadness. Not obvious ingredients for a sex movie but the real problem is that the young couple have real difficulty getting it on together because the guy is used to working (and cumming) in a live sex stage act. This means much of the sex is deliberately non sexy. Add to this the stylish and colourful stage routines are not sexy either leaves your average viewer missing out. It has to be said that Lilli Carati looks lovely throughout but she does sulk a lot which can be distracting.

Watching this again (reviewing under this title led me to imagine I hadn't seen it before!) I have to record that I've been a bit hard on this and found it fine this time around, maybe having seen it before helped me accept the premise. In any even i even found the set pieces good and the train sequence exceptional. Interesting take on effect of voyeurism from both sides!

At 22 years of age didn't convince me in her role as a teenager, so that threw that aspect of the film out of whack. But at least I wasn't subjected to the same disgust as in the movie "To our loves" where they had a 16 year in bed with a 25 year. But none the less I did not find her acting convincing enough to believe that she was a naïve, petulant child.

The dialog left a bad taste and was corn ball cheesy, and from some of these other reviews here. The only thing that matter was seeing a naked woman, no matter how much a of a cringe worthy cheese fest this film became. A generous 4 out of 10.