User reviews

A young Italian artist is living with his Euro-hippie revolutionary father and his father's young, sexy, and always under-dressed girlfriend (Barbara Bouchet), who is driving him to distraction. He takes an interest to the pretty girl next door (Simonetta Stefanelli) and starts tutoring her in Latin. However, his amorous advances on his young neighbor are constantly thwarted by her overly religious family--an annoying mother, a wheelchair-bound grandmother, and, worst of all, her overbearing uncle (Gigi Ballista), who is the local priest. The two worlds of the young artist eventually collide when his father and his revolutionary friends launch a hare-brained scheme to set off a bomb--actually, a stink bomb--in the uncle's church.

This is an early example of a 1970's sex comedy, but it probably also owes somewhat of a debt to the then-popular "decamerotoci" films with its combination of sex/nudity and satirical attacks on organized religion. Unlike the "decamerotici" though, it is set in the present day and also takes satirical pot-shots at the half-assed bohemian "revolutionaries" that were numerous in Italy and really everywhere in the early 1970s. The protagonist eventually discovers that BOTH the conservative religious people and the revolutionary leftists are hypocrites--the former turn out to be secretly lustful and incestuous, while the latter, despite their "free love" ethos, turn out to be jealous and petty (and just plain silly). Director Giulio Petri could be commended for his satirical criticism of both sides of the 70's-era culture wars, but I suspect his main interest is simply to get Bouchet and Stefanelli as naked as much as possible (not that anyone will probably complain. . .). Still, if you consider that most "sex comedies" today aim straight for the most puerile, below-the belt "raunchiness" without even coming close to more sophisticated kinds of comedy like satire, AND lately they often can't even seem to persuade their female cast to disrobe much (check out recent crap like "Hooking Up", "Chick Magnet", and "The To-Do List"--or better yet don't), I just can't be too hard on a movie like this.

Barbara Bouchet is, of course, an Italian sex comedy legend, appearing in films like this from the late 60's to the mid 80's as well as lots of other Italian genres films--gialli, crime thrillers. spaghetti westerns, horror, you name it. Like Edwige and Rosalba Neri, she was a very effective combination of sexy and talented. Simonetta Stefanelli is best known for her role in "The Godfather" the next year as Michael Corleone's young Italian wife. She is also the mother of the equally sexy Violente Placido (George Clooney's girlfriend in "The American"). Gigi Ballista is a familiar Italian character who played a lot of hypocritical blowhards like this. Giulio Petri, meanwhile, was never a great director, but he is serviceable one. This is a worthwhile movie overall.

A young artist named Pino (Dado Crostarosa) develops a crush on girl next door Maria Teresa, who just happens to be played by Appolonia from `The Godfather' (Simonetta Stefanelli). The problem is, she is very religious and he is not. At his job decorating dishes for tourists he even refuses to paint religious images. The romance over the balcony fence starts to get serious when the boy offers to tutor her in Latin. Her nosy mother and grandmother (who lick stamps for a living) make for a comical nuisance. Meanwhile his revolutionary father Damiano (Luciano Salce) is having an affair with Nadin (Barbara Bouchet), a French student about the age of his son. When Pino takes his fathers flirtatious girlfriend out for a drive medallion man Damiano immediately becomes jealous.

Although nothing much happiness in the first hour, the musical score by Riz Ortolani tries to make you believe you're watching the funniest picture ever. It strives to emphasize even the tiniest joke by using church organs and pop tunes. Pino decides to visit a monastery to be baptized, but only learns his Hail Mary's. Unfortunately Maria Teresa's uncle shows up and decides he is better qualified to tutor her. Suddenly things start to move completely out of control when Damiano introduces his son to a radical group of pot smoking demonstrators. Soon Pino finds himself carrying a home made bomb for them but decides to follow Maria and her uncle instead.

During the last twenty minutes the plot loses all credibility, as if the filmmakers had no idea how to end the film. Out goes the tender love story with comments on religion to make way for teenage frustrations and unbelievable plot twists. There are some disturbing revelations about Maria Teresa's family, the bomb sub plot is just a McGuffin and an unlikely happy end arrives totally out of the blue. Then before you can ask yourself what happened, the credits start rolling.

4 out of 10