Conviene far bene l'amore

So I was looking for really bad movies to watch with friends, and this thing called the Sex Machine caught my eye (me being a guy and all). I read the box, and the premise seemed utterly too preposterous to resist. I mean, come on, this guy invents a machine that converts sexual energy to electricity to save the earth from complete amish lifestyle for the rest of eternity. Was I dissappointed? Absolutely not! Go rent it if you feel like mocking something that was oh so obviously meant to be mocked.

There's absolutely nothing worth recommending about this awful Italian "sex comedy." It's bad and cheap from beginning to end. It's a provincial Italian movie that should have remained lost in the boondoggles of the Italian countryside for all eternity and not released internationally. But, unfortunately, because of the film's sensationalistic title, distributors from all over the world got a hold of it and actually thought anyone living outside of Italy would be interested by it. Not!

Everything about it is cheap, grubby and ugly. But worst of all, it's totally unfunny. It's supposed to be a comedy but I can't imagine anyone laughing at any of the jokes in this movie.

If you like Italian movies in general, like me, do not, I repeat, do not watch this one. It's worthless.

Saw this movie years ago and remember it being funny throughout. Also a fair amount of skin; so its got that going for it, which is good. It was almost like a cross between: a Pink Panther movie, Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and a teen movie. If you can find it on cable or get ahold of a tape/dvd its worth a look.

The most important aspect of this film, is hidden at the beginning. Only after the half of the movie has gone, you discover that you are challenged to take a position on an underlying social problem. The position that the church takes on the fact that for the survival of the human race and the glory of the government, "the people have to make ONLY sex and not make any children". And of course, the church complies with the idea, discarding all the writings. And this is good. That's how the church, any church should behave. For the good of the human race and not for it's own good.

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.