Quatro Vezes Aquela Noite

While walking in the park with her dog, Tina Brandt (Daniela Giodarno) is flirted by the playboy Gianni Prada (Brett Halsey) in his fancy sport car. They schedule a date for the night, and Tina dresses her elegant and expensive dress. They go to a night club to dance and Tina returns home late night. Her mother Sofia (Valeria Sabel) sees Tina sneaking with her dress torn apart and Tina tells that Gianni tried to rape her. On the next morning, Gianni tells a different story to his friend. Later, the doorman (Dick Randall) tells another version of the story. Last but not the least, the possible truth is disclosed.

"Four Times That Night" is a surprisingly delightful and erotic romantic comedy of the master of horror and thriller Mario Bava. The plot brings an immediate association with "Rashômon", with four versions of the same story told by four different people. Daniela Giordano, the former Miss Italy 1966, is gorgeous, sexy and hot and it is delightful to see her wearing miniskirts or naked. In 1991, Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Bacon filmed "He Said, She Said" where they are reporters and give their perspective and opinion of the same event in a variation of this storyline. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Master director Mario Bava is best known for his horror films, and that's hardly surprising as films such as Blood and Black Lace and Black Sabbath certainly represent the best of his oeuvre - but he also made a few films outside of the horror genre, and Four Times That Night is surely one of the best. I can't say I'm a big fan of sex comedies, as while I enjoy seeing sex in movies; I tend to prefer it with a little more sleaze than what films like this tend to offer. However, by taking his central plot theme from the Akira Kurosawa masterpiece 'Rashomon', Bava has made a sex comedy that is interesting for the way it pans out, rather than because of the sex theme. The plot follows Gianni and Tina; a man and a woman that meet in a park. They end up going on a date together, but it ends mysteriously when Tina returns home with a ripped dress and Gianni is sporting a nasty looking scratch on his forehead. Both Tina and Gianni give their version of what happened on that night, and the story is given a third angle from Gianni's doorman.

It's clear that this film is never going to be as deep or as fascinating as Kurosawa's masterpiece, but as a slice of light entertainment; it works fine. Bava is famous for his use of lighting and technique in order to create atmosphere for his horror films, although this movie doesn't allow him to do that. That being said, Bava's fingerprints are all over the film; as the garish use of colour features prominently, and the seventies style is what helps to elevate the film above the usual level of a gentle sex themed comedy. The film benefits from the presence of Daniela Giordano; the sexy female lead whom Bava makes best use of at all opportunities. She is joined by Fulci muse Brett Halsey, as well as Dick Randall; a man more famous for his producing credits. Bava attempts to give the film some substance by way of a psychologist explaining how different people view the same events from different perspectives...but I find it hard to believe that three people could view the same event in such wildly differing ways. One slight criticism of the film is that it's not very funny...but it's fun enough, and worth seeing.

It's ironic that Italian horror maestro Mario Bava might have made with this movie what is literally the best sex comedy ever. Not that that is saying a lot--American sex comedies generally range from awful to downright painful, and let's not even speak of British sex comedies. Italian and continental sex comedies are slightly better (but that may only be because they rarely bother to translate them to English so most of the lame jokes and wretched double entendres go over my head, and I just wait around for Edwige Fenech or whoever to take off her clothes again).

Since it was directed by the famed Mario Bava,this movie has been translated into English, but it has an intelligent, conceptual humor that really requires no translation. It's a comic variation on the Japanese melodrama "Rashomon" where a first date between a man and a woman is told from the very different perspectives of him, her, and the doorman. Of course, being a comedy there is no rape and murder as in "Rashomon", but simply a torn dress and scratched forehead. Also, where "Rashomon" eventually resolves the differing accounts with an objective fourth story, the fourth story here is told by a blowhard pop psychologist and is at least as implausible as the other three. The message here seems to be that the truth itself is subjective, which makes this more akin to "Last Year at Marienbad" than "Rashomon" (although it's a lot more fun than either). It's also very subversive--the doorman, for instance, interrupts his obviously very fabricated tale (involving lesbianism and swingers) at the worst times to clean his glasses or go get a pair of binoculars (to the hilarious chagrin of the lecherous milkman he's telling the story to).

The female lead is Daniela Giordano, a former Miss Italy. She was not nearly as ubiquitous in continental sex comedies as Edwige Fenech, but she's very memorable here. She is introduced to the audience bending over in a short skirt playing with her dog,"Coolie", so named she says because of his "coolie nose" (this is a joke people who only speak English might not get, but suffice it to say that Giordano has a really nice "coolie"). The male lead is Brett Halsey who appeared years later in several latter-day Lucio Fulci films. He's not quite as funny here, but at least this movie is SUPPOSED to be a comedy. Definitely recommended for Bava fans and non-Bava fans alike.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from a Bava sex comedy which, thankfully, emerged to be not quite as low-brow and vulgar as most genre offerings (which the Italians would soon make their own); for the record, Lucio Fulci also dabbled in the subgenre a few years later with the THE EROTICIST (1972), which has just been released on R1 DVD. Even so, the film also wasn’t particularly interesting per se, albeit a typically stylish effort from this director. As a matter of fact, despite being undeniably amusing in its RASHOMON (1950)-like multiple (and hugely contrasting) depiction of the central situation, it made for a rather tedious – and dated – whole!

Anyway, the plot involves a young couple (Brett Halsey and Daniela Giordano) who meet by accident one day and then decide to go out together that night – which ends with the girl having her dress torn and the man with scratches on his forehead! Both of them then recount the way things went (she to her mother and he to his pals) – according to Giordano, Halsey tried to rape her; he, on the other hand, passes himself off as a shy person with the girl an insatiable vamp!

A third version of events is told by the oversexed middle-aged concierge of the complex where Halsey lives, which sees the latter depicted as a homosexual who brought Giordano to his flat so that she could serve as partner for his lover’s lesbian companion. This is the funniest, but also campiest, part of the film – funny due to the banter between the concierge and his dumb listener and campy because of the stereotypical representation of the male gay lifestyle, though the women’s angle is treated with greater sensitivity)! The last interpretation is then offered by a psychiatrist which rather deliberately supplies the most innocent and, frankly, dull outcome possible for that fateful night – since the closing narration goes on to ask the audience whether they actually swallowed his ‘theory’!

Despite having an American lead in Brett Halsey (who’s somewhat uneasy with the fluctuations in his character), the film really revolves around statuesque beauty Daniela Giordano (a former winner of the Miss Italy contest, no less). She looks confident in her various suggestive poses (this is easily Bava’s most explicit film with respect to nudity, though still pretty mild – there’s a similar hilarious contrivance to conceal private parts in bed as seen in DANGER: DIABOLIK [1968]!) but also demonstrates reasonable talent in her various facets of virtuous ingénue, sultry seductress, annoyed object of desire, etc.

Accompanying the film is a lounge soundtrack all-too-typical of its era. Incidentally, there’s some confusion concerning the year in which the film was made – many give it as 1972, but the look and feel of it all simply spells 1960s to me and, in fact, it’s listed in other sources as 1969 (which I’m inclined to believe); others yet seem to concede that the latter is true but then report its actual date of release as late as 1976!! Interestingly, the print on display has the film split into two parts – where the title in Italian is actually given as QUATTRO VOLTE…QUELLA NOTTE (which fits the English translation, whereas the original QUANTE VOLTE…QUELLA NOTTE means HOW MANY TIMES THAT NIGHT!); strangely enough, just as the film goes into its second half, the audio level drops considerably! By the way, this proved to be the director’s first collaboration with producer Alfredo Leone (who eventually got hold of the rights to a sizable portion of Bava’s back catalog!).

A great looking couple share an evening of dancing and groping. But just what happened isn't exactly certain as she has one version of the evening's happenings, he has another and the pervy concierge has yet another tale to tell. And finally there's "the truth" which is explained away be some shrink. Or is it the truth?

Well, this could have been a disaster of a film. Luckily it isn't as Mario Bava, one of Italy's finest visual directors, imbues the film with enough striking imagery, beautiful set design and fluent camera work to keep viewers interested. It's not particularly funny but it has a strange kind of charm to it. But hey, if you're a nut about light sex farces you may find it great.

One thing's for sure; the leading lady (Daniela Giordano, a former miss Italy) is one of the most striking eye candy ever to grace the screen. She also delivers a spirited performance and American Brett Halsey is also quite lively.

Give this a spin on a slow night.