A case could be made for Salvatore Samperi being one of the most influential directors in 1970s Italy. His early films such as Grazie, Zia (1968) and especially Malizia (1973) thematically spawned a barrage of Italian films where fresh-faced, teenaged Italian males lust after stepmothers, maids, friends of mother or older women of some sort. This is no exception. Cenci plays a role that he seems to have inherited from the late Alessandro Momo: the teenager who pines after and finally gets to lay his stepmother (the luscious Fenech playing the Laura Antonelli role). Everyone else fulfills their stereotypes. Caprioli plays the befuddled father and Stander plays a role he played often in Italian films: the horny grandpa. The film is bland for the genre and the climactic sex scene is disappointing. Paint-by-numbers filmmaking and nothing more.
Review of Innocence and Desire
