La bella e la bestia (1977)

Title		La bella e la bestia
Origin		Italy, 1977
Genre		Erotic: Decamerotica
Director		Luigi Russo
Starring		Lisbeth Hummel, Brigitte Petronio
Music		Piero Umiliani
Blurb		-

From Italy comes this collection of four short sensual stories. I know almost nothing about the director Luigi Russo. The only other work of his I've seen is Blue Island, a lightweight and extremely silly take on the Blue Lagoon theme which did not lead me to expect anything special from this title.

These period dramas could be loosely termed "Decamerotica", but it's not a very accurate term. It brings to mind the sort of words used in no other circumstances, such as "buxom" and "ribald". Russo does not favour "buxom" but rather the opposite - slim, delicate, pert and youthful blondes. As for ribaldry, the nearest he comes to cracking a joke is a schoolmaster with a nervous tic. And woe betide any boy who laughs!

The common theme is masochism. But that need not mean commonplace images of leather-clad dominatrices wielding whips. Things are much more subtle, with the purest pleasure coming from the self-inflicted torture of the mind rather than the body. And though the focus may at first be on an individual sufferer, an atmosphere builds where every single character seems to live and breathe their own gentle perversion. Events unfold so tantalisingly slowly that watching is a whole new delicious kind of torture all of its own.

Against expectations this turned out to be a truly first-rate film that can be enjoyed many times in many different ways. In a genre that rarely produces more than unappetising tripe, in a very distinctive style Luigi Russo has served up a sumptuous and delicious banquet of sensuality and erotica.

La Schiava The Queen sends for the King's harem of naked slavegirls.

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La Schiava (The Slave)

The first story is set in late mediaeval times. Beginning conventionally enough, the camera finds Tsar Vladimir of Russia as he surveys his castle from the battlements, then retires to the intimacy of his harem.

Tonight the King anticipates the conquest of the most beautiful slavegirl ever to grace his chambers. Yet insolently, majestically, the woman (Lisbeth Hummel) defies him! Bewitched, the King begs her to let him offer her anything her heart desires. Condescending to accept, the slave wills that she be crowned his Queen for a single day.

In a compelling sequence of vignettes the Queen occupies the throneroom and issues a series of decrees that bring about the exquisite abasement and ruination of every last person involved.

Russo here lays out his style of building atmosphere with attractive soft-focus photography and light ethereal music. He glories in nudity for its own sake. And as much nudity as it takes, a single woman might be enough, or a whole roomful. But he does not need (or want) to depict explicit sex. The pleasure is in the anticipation, and even more so in the repeated delaying of the consummation. A notable quirk is his use of extreme, strangely framed close-ups which seem to fetishise eyes, nose, lips, and even teeth.

Zooerastia The unfaithful wife is locked in a dungeon with some very special companions.

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Zooerastia (Venus of the Animals)

A counterpart to the first story, also starring Lisbeth Hummel and still set in Russia, but taking place (as does the next) around the turn of the last century. I've freely translated the title. Shame on those who didn't have to look it up! Certainly the theme is controversial, but we will not be confronted by scenes as utterly foul as might have been feared.

An ageing nobleman, the richest man in Russia, has a stunningly beautiful young wife. Discovering her infidelity he locks her naked in a dungeon beneath the stables. There she makes her tortuously slow descent into the ultimate reaches of squalour and degradation.

Something to admire about Russo is the attention he pays to scenes that do not involve sex or nudity. Conventionally these are just a necessary evil to be got through in order to set up the next pair of breasts, but Russo esteems images of fully clothed women as highly as the most explicit nudes. Here we find some wonderful scenes of Lisbeth simply riding her black stallion through the palace gardens. Not only do they establish setting and character, but they provide as much pure enjoyment as anything else in the film.

La Fustigazione A boy and his curious cousin spy on his mother in her room.

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La Fustigazione (The Whipping)

A callow, slow-witted youth suffers beatings from an uncompromising schoolmaster. The feelings of pain and humiliation are only matched in intensity by those that come from spying on his mother (Piera Maria Caretto) with her lover. But when she catches Peeping Tom in the act and, still half-naked, thrashes him with a riding crop the two sets of emotions become inextricably entangled.

At night the boy yearns for games which cannot be enjoyed alone. The arrival of his delicate and pretty young cousin (Brigitte Petronio) is to make his perverse erotic dreams come true.

As usual Russo does not overburden us with explanations as to who everyone is and what exactly is going on. We are left to make of it what we will, and the result is intensely atmospheric and otherworldly. The most loving care is taken over elements that in lesser hands would be skimmed over as entirely subsidiary to the main theme. In particular the vignettes in the schoolroom, with the autocratic Master and frock-coated, stiff-mannered boys (who as usual look a little old to be still at school) are superb, reminiscent of scenes in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

This tale was resolved in a manner rather contrary to that for which I had hoped. But as this collection is intended to be about, and for, masochists I suppose I ought to be grateful for that.

La Promessa Remixed to Riz Ortolani - Giovanna's appointment with the dressmaker, and nude in her bedroom suite.

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La Promessa (The Promise)

A contemporary tale, the shortest, slightest, and most perplexing in the collection. Giovanna, a virgin on the eve of her wedding, reminds her cousin that it is his last chance to fulfill a promise he made to her years ago. It's an ordinary (not to say banal) theme, but Russo tackles it in the same distinctive and eccentric style as before.

The story opens with a strange vignette, equally ordinary and exotic. Giovanna (Francoise Gerardine I believe) is free of her bossy mother for an hour while the dressmaker fits her wedding gown. Filmed like a physical seduction, the dressmaker runs her hands sensually over the fabric covering the body of the golden-haired girl, biting at the loose threads, struggling to hold back her excitement. Images of the innocent girl caressing and kissing her pet white dove are interwoven.

The rest of the story simply cannot live up to the opening. Cousin Eric finally carries out his promise in a manner which, while not in the class of the perversions of the previous stories, is nevertheless rather odd. It's hardly very romantic (or innocent), and only leaves one scratching one's head over the scene's intentions.

The way the story (and thus the entire film) concludes is baffling too. A slow lingering pan takes us away from the lovers in the house, and across the chilly and autumnal gardens as the wedding guests gather and greet each other. A conventional enough scene, but why here and why now? There is an inescapable feeling that a message is being conveyed here, but one that I have no hope of even beginning to decipher.

Ratings

Quality: 8/10   Fun: 9/10

Review copy

Publisher		Unlicensed
Format		DVD Region 0, NTSC 4:3 (1.85:1 letterbox)
Certificate		-
Image		Sub-VHS, badly letterboxed partly cropping subtitles at 16:9

Madeleine, Study of a Nightmare (1974)

Title		Madeleine, anatomia di un incubo
Origin		Italy, 1974
Genre		Drama: Psychodrama
Director		Roberto Mauri
Starring		Camille Keaton, Riccardo Salvino, Paola Senatore
Music		Maurizio Vandelli
Blurb		-

My favourite horror babe Camille Keaton stars in this psychological drama from Italy. Not a lot is known about this title, but the fact that Camille is in it and it has something to do with witches was more than enough to pique my interest.

Entrusted with the lead role of Madeleine, Camille is going to have to change her trademark sleepwalking style and actually do some acting to sustain this one. It simply won't do to just stand there while everyone around her wonders whether she's fallen unconscious or not.

We find Madeleine alone in the countryside sitting by a quiet pond. Is she awake? It would appear so as she seems to be doing some sewing but the picture is so poor it's hard to tell. As it is soon revealed that Madeleine is pregnant it's a safe bet that she's sewing (or knitting) baby clothes.

A promising beginning? Certainly it's a tranquil one, but how is the story to develop? Will Madeleine fall in that murky pond full of weeds and get a drenching? That would be horrendous - think of the laundry bills! But that's hardly going to be enough to sustain an hour and a half of drama. Though there could be a sub-plot where Madeleine removes her damp dress and underwear to dry, only to have them stolen by a clothes thief. Madeleine gives chase - completely in the nude!

But such sleazy speculation has no place here, for with director Roberto Mauri we are in the hands of a sophisticate. No cheap exploitation for him, this is psychodrama. Featuring the wealthiest Italian jet-setters, wearing the latest fashions in clothes, drinking the finest wines, and smoking the most expensive brands of fags. But don't worry if slumped there in your boxers with a bottle of White Lightning and packet of Rizlas you're feeling out of place. This is cinema, and everyone is welcome.

It turns out Mauri didn't use my suggestion about Madeleine's soaking wet clothes after all. He thought of something better! What's that cackling she can hear in the reeds? Madeleine is in the bad-books of a menacing pack of witches! Soon she's running for her life through the dark and misty woods. This sequence is rather silly but atmospheric and quite well done overall. They're an odd bunch of witches, with dayglo perms and costumes that appear to have been sewn together out of binliners. Certain clues lead us to suspect that this is only a dream (slow-motion, "nightmare" in the title, there's no such thing as witches etc.). If we accept the strict Freudian interpretation that dream imagery, no matter how terrifying and unwelcome, always represents the actual repressed desires of the dreamer, then it must be that Madeleine wants to hit people with sticks and set them on fire. Can't wait!

Madeleine wakes up screaming. Shall we call the ambulance for the mental hospital right now? Better play it safe and give it five minutes because at this point to my frustration the screenwriter decided to forget everything that just happened and have the story be about something else entirely. Or at least that's how it seems. At first nothing in the dream relates to Madeleine's real life. She's not pregnant for a start, and has no children. She is lying on a sun-lounger by the swimming pool of a hyper-modern (and hyper-expensive I'll bet) villa. There is a man of about forty years of age lying beside her. He raises his head a few degrees and expresses mild interest in the fact that Madeleine has just screamed the place down.

Who is this man? I can tell you he is played by Silvano Tranquilli and his character's name is Franz Schuman. He likes to read weighty tracts obviously of a psychological nature (cf. Sexual Aberrations in the Criminal Female in Hitchcock's Marnie). His body language conveys authority and proprietorship. Displease him and he looks absolute daggers at you (as if he was about to draw a stiletto - I was quite intimidated). Franz likes to observe, but is taciturn and distant. So distant that at one point he even blinks instantaneously out of existence, leading us to ask questions such as "what the bloody hell was that all about then??"

But what of his relationship to Madeleine? Is he husband, lover, father or boss? I've got to admit here that I do not speak Italian and a lack of subtitles meant I did not quite understand what was going on. Though this is often a serious drawback, in the right circumstances a lack of comprehensibility can make a story and its characters all the more fascinating.

Meanwhile, it appears that Madeleine is free to do absolutely whatever she wants. She drives into town in her nifty British roadster, and picks up a hitch-hiking hippy along the way. His name is Tomas, he's from Switzerland, and he stares at Madeleine's legs. The pair arrive back at the villa without incident (I'm amazed Camille could get insurance to drive that thing).

Madeleine proves herself the purest of playgirls by inviting Tomas for a swim - all in the nude! Or could this just be a ruse to make sure the hippy took a bath before allowing him indoors? (The swimming pool by the way would surely be the star of the show if Camille wasn't in it. It's massive, and the water the deepest of blues. The villa is splendid too, part traditional-style African grass huts, part Seventies steel and glass modernism.) But what is Franz going to think of all this carrying-on? Hmm.

Now we know a little more about her I'm going to advance the theory that Madeleine is an international jewel thief, and Franz is a retired Mafioso who blackmailed her into a loveless marriage. As good a theory as any, and I'm going to keep with it until definitive evidence turns up against it.

Madeleine gets herself another boyfriend called Luis (Riccardo Salvino). He's a racing driver (a dangerous sport that). He's also a lot of fun. But if he insists on games of badminton so close to the pool he's going to end up playing with a very damp shuttlecock! So how about horse riding along the beach without any shirts on? I wasn't quite ready to watch that game, but it was spectacular! But hang on, Luis seems to be involved with Franz in some way, presumably his son. So according to my theory he is messing around with his own step-mother, who is younger than he is. The jewel thief / marriage hypothesis is beginning to look shaky already.

So basically not an awful lot is happening here, and to be honest it is a bit boring. I filled in the time just wondering what mode of transportation pampered playgirl Madeleine would utilise next, and whether or not she would do it topless (eg. Speedboat: Yes).

On to the only real event of the film, the formal party at the villa. This is very swish, very sophisticated. The absolute epitome of jet-set. (The only slight faux pas in the arrangements is the cheap joke of leaving around saucers of burning cooking fat in the hope that some hippy will brush its flares against them and set them on fire.) But the more exclusive the gathering the greater the opportunity for social disgrace. And, in a certain type of film, social disgrace is the sole reason for staging these parties in the first place. So which of the ladies is up for the drunken striptease? Or will she go one better and urinate standing up where everyone can see?

At the party Madeleine, the playgirl now in the social glare turning to something of a wallflower, meets a beautiful young woman (Paola Senatore). The way these two first encounter each other is classic, exchanging silent glances as the couples weave towards and away from each other on the dancefloor. For me this is the most haunting and memorable scene in the film. Things are beginning to fit together in a subtle and mysterious way. And so we leave the story to slowly make its way to a resolution that is satisfying and suitably surprising. Or at least I get the impression it would be if only you could understand what people are saying.

It's difficult to evaluate a work like Madeleine. It has pretentions to be more than a typical genre drama, and the scenes of gratuitous nudity stop comfortably short of soft porn. I enjoyed the atmosphere of mystery and the way that events unfolded so subtly. Obviously not a lot of money was available to spend on it (and most of it went on entertaining the director's friends at that party scene by the looks of it). The sun-drenched photography often looks lovely even on my degraded copy. The modernistic score by Maurizio Vandelli sounds like it could have been recycled from Ennio Morricone's wastepaper basket. It follows the traditional Italian style of repeating the same couple of themes ad nauseum, but serves its function of establishing and maintaining a consistent dreamlike mood. And as for Camille Keaton's acting in the leading role - well, she doesn't need to act, she just is.

Overall Madeleine is almost a piece of social archaeology, recovering the most uninhibited dreams and aspirations of people from a distant time and place. I was strangely fascinated and very glad I took this trip backwards in time.

Clips

Madeleine the Playgirl
A Camille Keaton collection.

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Paola at the Party
Good-time girls getting it on.

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Ratings

Quality: 5/10   Fun: 7/10

Review copy

Publisher		Unlicensed
Format		DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3 (1.85:1 letterbox, sidecropped from 2.35:1)
Certificate		-
Image		Very poor sub-VHS

Zenabel (1969)

Title	Zenabel
Origin	Italy, 1969
Genre	Adventure: Comedy
Director	Ruggero Deodato
Starring	Lucretia Love, Mauro Parenti, Lionel Stander, John Ireland
Music	Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai
Blurb	-

Something for the Dads Zenabel, friends, cow and udders.

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Here's a saucy piece of swashbuckling adventure, adapted from a popular comic book, and directed by Ruggero "Cannibal Holocaust" Deodato. This bad-boy of Italian cinema has quite a following, yet in one lengthy forum discussion I read recently there was not a single mention of Zenabel.

Which is a shame as it's a whole lot of fun. We open up in gloriously rustic style with a group of beautiful maidens peeling off their garments and splashing into a river by a picturesque waterfall. In slow motion, to vibrant and unusual theme music. Talk about starting as you mean to go on! One glance at this and no red-blooded male could fail to sit down and watch to the end (in fact I stood so transfixed it took me twenty minutes to realise I hadn't actually got round to sitting down yet).

I think featuring the cow was truly inspired. It adds a homely touch yet is indefinably kinky at the same time (in real life it would inevitably have laid its pats in the water and the girls would have had to get out). All this nudity is even relevant to the plot, because the next scene is about women bathing by a waterfall with nothing on.

The story is set in Spain in the seventeenth century or thereabouts. Fair Zenabel (Lucretia Love), secretly of aristocratic stock, has her inheritance usurped by the evil Baron Don Alonso (John Ireland). So she raises an army of virgins to fight for her birthright. Along the way many women will show off their charms, and many men will be made fools of. Zenabel has a couple of male sidekicks whom she tries to make wear dresses. One is a strange-looking beanpole (probably a glandular complaint), the other is played by grizzly Lionel Stander, Max from Hart to Hart. Fans of his will be delighted to see him at one point strip down to a ridiculous pair of underpants!

Bum Pleasure Wicked Zenny gets her just deserts.

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Soon Zenabel's army clashes with a horde of bandits, much to the men's derision. But when their leader Gennaro (Mauro Parenti) contemptuously dares her to shoot him in the backside she actually goes ahead and does so. Lucky for him her rifle blew up in her face - and blimey did she look sheepish! Zenny makes haste in any direction but his, and in one of his occasional avant-gardeisms Deodato turns the camera upside down and has Zenny scarpering across the sky.

Justice must prevail and happily the Bandit King chases down the Virgin Queen and soon has her at his mercy. Hmm, what is her punishment to be? Pull her pants down that's right, take your belt to her and give that bare bottom a damn good thrashing! Argghh no you fool, don't perform a "sex act" on her! So not only does he throw away a golden opportunity with no more than a playful slap, but considering that later on Zenny is still claiming to be a virgin he also forfeits his right to call himself a gentleman. Bah!

Torture Chamber Zenny is forced to suffer the Baron's knob jokes.

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Mostly the tone is of light comedy, with many scenes of nudity (usually with discreet covering of the rudest bits). The more restrained scenes have just one or two women naked at a time, sometimes there's a whole screenful of them. This is boob and bum lovers' heaven! One fine set-piece has a pack of nudes hunted through the woods with horses and dogs.

Sometimes a slightly darker tone takes over, such as a very gothic scene in a torture chamber. Zenabel is at the Baron's mercy, but the worst she has to suffer is too much phallic innuendo. The jokes surely suffer in translation, but I suspect as usual they were on the weak side in Italian too.

Deodato's direction is lively enough, though not especially distinctive. Production design and locations are effective, despite the feeling there was not a lot of money to work with. The music is modern in style, and the standard is very variable, but the main themes are rich, bold and enhance the mood.

By far the film's greatest asset is its star Lucretia Love herself. She is beautiful and vivacious, and can act her part as well. She truly is the Queen, Zenabel!

Ratings

Quality: 7/10   Fun: 8/10

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3
Certificate	VM 14 (Italy)
Image	English dub, Greek subtitles, weak VHS transfer from NTSC source

Mondo Candido (1975)

Title	Mondo candido
Origin	Italy, 1975
Genre	Adventure: Comedy
Director	Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Starring	Christopher Brown, Michelle Miller, Jacques Herlin
Music	Riz Ortolani
Blurb	-

Most notorious for their shockumentary pieces such as Mondo Cane and Africa Addio, Italians Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi took on a literary adaptation for their final collaboration. Voltaire's classic of the enlightenment Candide seems an unlikely basis for exploitation cinema. But this scurrilous satire, once suppressed as obscene, is such a vast blank canvas for images of sex, violence, and just plain blowing things up it's a wonder no-one thought of it before.

Voltaire's aim was to poke fun at the optimistic world view of German philosopher Leibniz. To test it to the limits of absurdity, the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss is summed up by the motto of "all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds". His pupil, the innocent young Candide, is naïve enough to follow this creed throughout the wars and disasters of the mid-eighteenth century. That philosophical spat may be forgotten, but paste in a backdrop of the conflicts and crises of today and the work must still have relevance. And it's obvious how it would appeal to a pair of cynical Mondo merchants.

Things start off quite faithful to the original. The fabulous fairy-tale castle of Château de Pierrefonds stands in for the seat of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh (Gianfranco D'Angelo) in Westphalia. Alongside his sweetheart the Baron's pure and chaste daughter Cunegonda (Michelle Miller), Candido (Christopher Brown) lives a charmed life under the philosophy of his tutor Dr. Pangloss (Jacques Herlin). He's free to prance about the gardens making an absolute fanny of himself without raising so much as a snigger from passers-by. An ideal world indeed. During these frolics he may happen to encounter artistic tableaux such as a recreation of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Already we have established that anachronisms will be tolerated and are even welcome, and that a subject has a greater chance of being included if it offers opportunities for nudity.

Harvesting fruit Pangloss & Paquette (Sonia Viviani) bonking up a ladder.

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Things are about to go all pear-shaped for Candido. Pangloss wanders through the orchard meditating, with his usual back-to-front logic, on the principle of circumference and all things round. He spies peasant girl Sonia Viviani up a ladder picking apples. In particular he spies her magnificently round bare behind and cannot resist the temptation. Cunegonda, aboard a swing, looks on and is intrigued.

Wouldn't it be nice to try something like that with Candide? Contriving an accident, she launches herself off the swing (in slow motion, and set to music) and lands with her legs wrapped around the neck of the innocent young soul. He may be shocked, but seems in no hurry to wrest himself free. By the time a furious procession of grotesques arrives from the castle he has his head firmly jammed up his sweetheart's skirts and is refusing to come out.

Exiled! Now Pangloss's philosophy will be put firmly to the test as Candido is forced to make his own way in the world. Press-ganged by the Prussian army, Voltaire's horror of militarism is illustrated by the troops' suicidal toughening-up exercises in readiness for a futile battle. Against the vast opposing army they are mere cannon fodder, and lots of things get smashed up, set on fire, and blown sky-high (some by anachronistic tanks).

Castle Invasion Hells Angels play fast and loose with the kitchen-maids.

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How are things going with Cunegonda in the meantime? Left alone in her castle chambers she plays the part of a typical Seventies bimbo, dancing in carefree style to pop music surrounded by the latest electrical gadgets.

This idyll cannot last forever. The castle is invaded! Demonic knights are pictured as Hell's Angels rampaging through the kitchens on motorbikes, terrorising the maids and (very important) ripping off their clothes.

This may seem a severe test for the world view of Pangloss. How can the castle being razed to the ground be "for the best"? But the crazy doctor not only has no trouble incorporating the disaster into his philosophy, he welcomes it gleefully. Of course it's for the best, even himself catching syphilis is "for the best"!

Inquisition Meatgrinders, nude nuns, wimples and figleaves.

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After harrowing adventures Candido returns to the castle, only to find that it's fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and they are staging an auto-da-fé

Obviously this is an irresistible opportunity for any film-makers inclined towards exploitation to indulge themselves, and this is one of the principal set-pieces. Nuns stripped down to their wimples are handed out figleaves before being flattened in screw-presses, put through meat-grinders, and tied up in sacks full of cats and dogs. Amongst other things...

But Cunegonda is here! She dances to a rock band led by her idol Attila. Alas, Candido is to discover that his sweetheart is not as pure and chaste as he believed. Mortified, he is told that not only has she been repeatedly raped, she enjoyed it too!

This is to be the parting of the ways for the lovers, and the beginning of the second phase of the story. Cunegonda heads off to America, while Candido sets off in a distant pursuit accompanied by his faithful African slave.

Outdoor Shower Candido pursues Cunegonda amongst the girls of the IDF.

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This second half is also a parting of the ways between the original and the adaptation. The wars of the eighteenth century are replaced with contemporary conflicts in Northern Ireland and Israel.

In perhaps the visual (and musical) highlight of the film female soldiers of the IDF clash with Arab freedom fighters. Caught unawares after a shower the girls give battle still only partly clothed, in one case even blasting away with a machine gun completely naked. In symbolic futility the two armies mutually slaughter each other, their bodies left littering a field of poppies to the fading strains of one of the masterworks of Riz Ortolani.

Such an unusual mix of literature and exploitation is difficult to sum up. It's a work that is obviously aimed at a wide audience rather than a narrow arthouse crowd. As such the directors need to be judged not by the faithfulness of the adaptation, or the relevance of the ideas explored, creditable enough though these are.

The primary appeal of Mondo Candido is the richness of the imagery that it contains. There is an almost ceaseless parade of startling and original tableaux to compel the attention, and composer Ortolani excels himself in accompanying the images with some magnificently florid themes to round out the sensory experience. No fan of European cinema, arthouse or trash, will want to miss it.

Ratings

Quality: 9/10   Fun: 8/10

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD Region 0, NTSC 4:3 (slight letterboxing)
Certificate	VM 18 (Italy)
Image	Acceptable but washed-out VHS transfer.