A Bela Antônia

Who else could play the title character of La Bella Antonia but La Bella Edwige? As a virtues (at first ) medieval maiden (not for long) bound to a marriage of inconvenience. she has to have a picture painted to sweeten the deal. Enter Giovanni Piccolomini (Riccardo Garrone), wearing a scene stealing red cap indicating his artistic nature. Giovanni's brush is irresistible to every woman he meets, including (within the first ten minutes of the film), a serving wench at the local tavern and both of Antonia's ladies in waiting. Being one of those period sex romps from Fenech' early years, she still had to share on-screen nudity with up to six other women per film. Later her status as Italy's queen of Sexploitation grew strong enough for her to demand alone-right on nakedness.

While Antonia remains adamant of saving herself for her clumsy blond Vulco (who looks and acts like Prince Valium from Spaceballs), Giovanni presents his favorite conquests with the latest fashion from Rome: a pair of big yellow bloomers. Hence the catchy theme song (La Mutanda) at the start. Owing to a rather under explained misunderstanding, Antonia commits herself to a convent because she is denied the love of Vulco, while it is actually him she is betrothed to all along. Luckily Giovanni decides to help the pair get together, although how he finds the time to do so while pleasing all the other women in town remains a mystery. The action (and I mean this literally) switches to the local convent, where all sorts of nocturnal activities are going on during nightly prayers.

Of course at the time this film was shot, free love was all the rage, but the unrivaled promiscuity shown here borders on the ridiculous. For instance, over in another subplot, hapless servant Ariosto is forced to pimp out the female staff to Antonia's lusty old dad. But mom (who does not look old enough to have carried Edwige in the first place) is on to him. Meanwhile again, Giovanni is painting an alfresco for Vulco's mother, who really does not look old enough to - well, you get the picture. Eventually, all's well that ends well with one of those Asterix final page banquets, except that once Antonia is married, she starts to take after her father...

8 out of 10

Being somewhat of a connoisseur of 70's Italian sex comedies (that or just a drooling idiot), I have seen any number of the countless movies in this generally dimwitted, inbred genre. The best, relatively speaking, are the ones that feature the sumptuous and genuinely talented actress Edwige Fenech, and those that fall into category of "decamerotici"--basically a series of period sex comedies loosely based on Boccaccio's classic literary work "The Decameron" (but more likely based on the hit Pier Pasolini movie of the same name). Well, this movie is a "decamerotici" AND it features Edwige Fenech in the title role, so naturally it is well above par.

Fenech plays the titular "Antonia" who wants to marry her true love, but the path is blocked by she and her lover's feuding families. She gets some help though from a charming rogue painter, at least when he isn't busy dipping his brush in every available paint pot, including the elderly inn-keepers wife (Malissa Longo), Antonia's two young ladies-in-waiting, and even her betrothed's youngish-looking mother (Lucrezia Love). There's also a whole subplot going on with "Antonia's" ridiculously horny father and a put-upon male servant. And then there's this whole thing with ladies' underwear, which apparently was just coming into fashion at the time (and would have been pretty inconvenient given the absurd amount of sexual activity that seemed to be routinely happening in this era). The movie also dips briefly into "nunsploitation" as "Antonia" enters a convent at one point (I have to say, if real nuns looked anything like all the Italian actresses that have variously played nuns in these movies, I personally would have never left Catholic school).

Fenech is every bit as sexy and naked as usual, and she is ably assisted here by Longo, Love, et. al. She was still pretty young in this movie though and doesn't get to do the comedy she'd come to excel at later in her career. For better or worse, this is all handled by the male cast, and while they're not great, they're generally less annoying than the likes of Alvaro Vitali or Lino Banfi who were ubiquitous in the non-"decamerotici" Italo-sex comedies of the era. This isn't as good as the director (Mariano Laurenti's) other famous "decamerotici" (also with Fenech), "Ubalda, All Naked and Warm", but it is solidly entertaining.

I do not like these films but very much appreciate the ability to produce these beautiful women much more beautiful time now. These films are quite vulgar but always have a certain amount of comedy that should not be underestimated. There were films shot mainly to excite the mass of young Italian of 70 years and the success was almost assured. From Italian not appreciate much vulgarity in Italian comedies, but I am very pleased denigrate certain types of comedies that have made the history of my nation. A film associated with comedies of Boccaccio but with beautiful women as plaintiffs. They film their place in the period even though some critics are revaluing them. I put a 10 to raise the average.