La femme à travers le monde

This was made with leftovers from the great 'Mondo Cane.' As was Mondo Pazzo. (aka Mondo Cane II) Checking out the female form and activity all over the world, you get everything. Soldiers, strippers, hookers, and the multiple wives of some warrior types.

Some would see this as a bit sexist due to its obsession with the subservient roles. But that's how it was then.

Seeing the Geisha bit was interesting. I live in Japan. It's great to see a dying art get its due.

However, the plastic surgery scenes were not easy to watch.

If you like Mondo, see this one.

After a little over 5 years from its release, Blue Underground's "The Mondo Cane Collection" is still, for my money, the biggest scam in the history of DVD. It's not because the films themselves were not as "shocking" as they had been played up to be (I had watched most of them on Italian TV already) or because the discs were shoddily presented but for the reason that, after hyping their "10,000 Limited Edition" status – which doubtlessly duped many a serious film collector (myself included) into springing for the $120 set – these same films (indeed discs) have subsequently, in 2005 and 2008, been variously reissued by the same company under different combinations for half the price they were originally being offered for! This deceit perhaps explains why it has taken me all this time to pop any of the 8 discs included in the original set into my DVD player for the first time – although, as I said before, only 2 of them (the title under review and the feature-length documentary on the duo of controversial film-makers) had been completely unfamiliar to me. As it turned out, WOMEN OF THE WORLD was pretty blah as well…which kind of increased my despondency about the whole bloody affair! Anyway, what we have here is a disparate depiction of the plight of women around the world circa 1962: from Israeli freedom fighters to Japanese pearl divers, from mature Hamburg whores to Swiss pain-free birth clinics, etc. Actually, watching the women from the exotic regions going about their strenuous daily work routine (carrying heavy loads and so on) while their lethargic husbands look impassively on, laze about or, worse still, put on make up and act queer, did provoke the occasional heckle from the undersigned but, I regret to say, it was mostly a rather dull ride. At least, the music (by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliveiro) is, typically for like product, quite good. While on the Italian version, the occasionally witty narration is provided by one of the film-makers himself (Jacopetti), the English translation (which is also present on the disc and, inexplicably, it reverted to while I was watching) is read by Peter Ustinov!

Women of the World felt like a direct sequel to Mondo Cane. It did fairly well in art houses -- considered a little too edgy for early 60's sentimentality to open very wide. Regrettably, it seems to be a lost film, at least in the U.S. The Riz Ortolani score is terrific. The main theme is a rousing twist number with a delightful montage of a variety of women. The rest of the score is a real treat for soundtrack aficianados. Look for this great movie score in vinyl bins.

I recently watched the Italian film Women of the World (1963) on the Full Moon app on Prime. This light-hearted documentary-style film attempts to depict women around the world performing everyday tasks "accustomed to their culture" while also touching on themes of sexual and lifestyle freedoms supposedly hidden within these women's souls.

The film is co-directed by Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, and Franco Prosperi, who also collaborated on A Dog's Life.

By the end of this film, I was left wondering what I had just watched. The narration is cheesy, and the content feels scattered. The depiction of a "siren" features one of the worst costumes I've ever seen. At times, it tries to be humorous, but the jokes fall flat. I couldn't quite understand why the runtime needed to be as long as it was.

In conclusion, Women of the World is one of the worst mockumentaries I've seen. I'd score it 1/10 and recommend skipping it.

I recently picked up the "Mondo Cane collection" from Blue Underground. The second of the official Mondo films is "Women of the World", feels more like a spin-off then an actual sequel to "Mondo Cane" as in was made in between the previous original Mondo, but before the sequel for that "shockumentary". "Women of the World" is just that, showing women from around the globe, from Israeli officers to Hamburg hookers, from Swedish co-ed hitch-hikers to gay drag queens. All in the name of enlightenment, i suppose. Like the previous film it saves the more risque parts for the latter area of the film (childbirth, army widows, etc...) Not as good as the previous film, but still worth a look.

My Grade: C

DVD Extras: 2 theatrical trailers (Usa and International); Poster and still gallery