Les monstresses

This could have been more enjoyable if the English dubbing could be better. I mean, jeez... I'll take Italian lessons or wait for the French version.

Still, the main actresses are all beautiful and funny. Watch out for a young Roberto Benigni with his typical haircut.

Most of the shorts within this film are pretty bad, and even if you want to see several sex symbols of the past in the same movie, it just isn't worth it. But at least this movie does save the best for last, as the final short with Laura Antonelli is definitely worth watching. So, if you ever come across this film, skip everything but the final twenty minutes or so. But if you do decide to watch it all, you probably won't be in a laughing mood once the only funny segment begins.

My review was written in February 1985 after watching the movie on Monterey video cassette.

"Tigers in Lipstick", which has gone through various title changes including "Wild Beds" and "Hijinks", is a made-in-1979 Italian throwback to the multi-part sex comedies that flourished in the early 1960s. Okay film is interesting for never having obtained a U. S. theatrical distributor, instead belatedly surfacing via home video after rights were acquired by Julian Schlossberg's Castle Hill Prods.

Lack of U. S. theatrical release can probably be traced to the fact that Laura Antonelli, then at the peak of her U. S. popularity, does not disrobe in the film. Nudity is provided by Sylvia Kristel, but overall package tips the balance towards comedy, neglecting the obvious voyeuristic potential of the material (which remains an important factor for European imports, even those of the arthouse variety).

Seven segments of various lengths emphasize the woman as aggressor, with various Continental actors and comics playing second fiddle to the attractive leading ladies. Most effective routine is "The Pickup", in which Antonelli has a field day a a nonstop businesswoman who makes an assignation with a young orchestra conductor who approaches her on the street, but keeps putting him off and getting him into slapstick situations as she runs around wheeling and dealing with lawyers, real estate men, etc. Unfortunately, this funny segment ends abruptly, lacking a satisfying or ironic payoff.

Monica Vitti is also amusing in "The Shell Game", getting to pose as a nun and as a doddering olf lady as she competes with Michele Placido in trying to steal an expensive necklace from a lady at a casino. Kristel is lovely but wooden in her turns, while Ursula Andress is the sexiest performer in the film. As with Antonelli, Andress avoids nude footage.

Vet neorealist director ("To Live in Peace") Luigi Zampa is merely marking time here, with film helped by a bouncy Riz Ortolani score.

Lamely functional eight-parter may be one of the most colossal misfires of its era, with the four willing actresses (of whose beauty and talents this should surely have been a celebration)wasted on sketches which are mainly plodding and obvious and in other cases amazingly brief and insubstantial. The visual approach is bland and straightforward - there's no zippiness, certainly no taste for farce or panache. And the most titillating thing in the movie is the seaside postcard-type design of the titles that link the episodes - the thing seems to lack much real sexual appetite. Andress is merely glacier-like in her first episode; this quality seems better deployed in her second, playing a woman in league with a repair shop, causing mass traffic crashes by strutting down the street half-dressed. Vitti is perhaps the most technically accomplished of the four but with the worst material. Kristel's opening episode is one of the better structured of the lot. Antonelli closes with a moderately complex role as a woman who juggles an attempt to sleep with a music conductor and a non-stop business schedule.

There are no Oscar winning performances in this one, however, it's not too bad. If you're looking for plot, pass. If you're looking for beautiful women showing skin, watch it.

Ursula Andress, as always, looks absolutely gorgeous.