Massimo Dallamano annd Edwige Fenech
14 October 2009
There's no doubt that this movie was inspired by the Salvatore Samperi-Laura Antonelli classic "Malizia" as other reviewers mentioned. But it should be said that "Malizia" really inspired an entire subgenre of "incestuous" Italian sex comedies in the 1970's. Not only were there numerous movies of adolescent boys losing their virginity to step-mothers, aunts, and even step-GRANDMOTHERS (in "Grazie Nonna", another Edwige Fenech vehicle), but there might have been even MORE movies about female adolescent "lolitas" seducing their mother's boyfriends, step-fathers, uncles or even actual fathers! ( I guess they REALLY liked to keep it in the family in 1970's Italy). Of course, in the typical sexist Italian fashion of that era all these ribald stories were told from the point of a view of the male protagonist whether he be an impressionable adolescent pounced on by a "cougar" or a beleaguered older man unable to resist a nubile, underaged vixen. (Perhaps the one exception was the curious Gloria Guida film "Peccati di Juventud" where an oversexed teenage GIRL seduces her step-MOTHER into a LESBIAN affair).

This all may sound pretty unsavory to the uninitiated, but one of the saving graces of these movies was that the "adolescents" in them (with the notable exception of the young boy in the original "Malizia") were obviously quite a bit older than the characters they played. The perennial "lolita" actresses like Gloria Guida, Ornella Muti, and Jenny Tamburi were actually in their early twenties at the time, and their male equivalent this movie, Robert Cenci (who really got typecast in these "younger man" type roles), looked even older than that. Nor, of course, were the "older women" ever typical frumpy middle-age types or for that matter even middle-aged at all (Edwige Fenech was actually only 25 or 26 here).

There's nothing really ORIGINAL about this movie, of course,, but there are two good reasons to see it (well, three if you count each of Fenech's breasts). One, of course, is the gorgeous and talented Fenech, but the other is Massimo Dallamano, who remains THE most underrated Italian genre director of the era. Bava, Argento, and Fulci have always gotten their due, as have Sergio Martino and Ferdinand Dileo more recently. Dallamano, a former cinematographer, died pretty young unfortunately, but he directed a whole string of interesting films in various genres from the late 60's to the time of his death in 1976. A Dallamano film with Fenech is itself worth the price of admission, even in this strange and somewhat disreputable Italian comedy subgenre.
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