Comedy! Italian! Sexy!, OR, Edwidge Fenech Speaks To You, And Only You

The past few months have brought us many estimable books on film, including two Otto Preminger biographies, Mark Harris' acute, ingenious Pictures at a Revolution, and Steve Erickson's headspinning Here Comes Everymovie novel of deranged cinephilia, Zeroville. But I have to say their places in my own personal heart have been supplanted by a peculiar little item that I happened to stumble across, of all places, in my favorite New York record store (yeah, I still call 'em "record stores"), Downtown Music Gallery. A stocky, thick volume with a cover photo whose naughty bits were not entirely covered up by the title Commedia Sexy All'Italiana—the "Sexy" in extra-large, raised letters—sat on top of a few boxes on the store's always-sorta-cluttered checkout counter. "Italian sex comedies!" said I. "Whose is this?"

"Nobody's," the store's founder Bruce shrugged. "It came in with the Ryko shipment, I have no idea why. Hey Chuck, who ordered this?" Chuck didn't know. Its arrival could have had something to do with the fact that packaged with the book was a bonus CD containing musical themes from the Italian sex comedies mentioned in the book's title.

As for the book itself, aside from a short introduction in both Italian and awkwardly translated English—to wit: "Eroticism here went hand in hand with comedy although many directors kept hovering around the same funny elements and the much too gross language, this way leading the subgenre straight to an early demise."—it's all pictures. Screen images, production stills, posed shots, mostly featuring the varied beauties who enlivened the lighter-hearted exploitation pictures coming from Italy from the late 60s to the early '80s. These women (the names most recognizable to American viewers include Laura Antonelli and Bond girl Barbara Bouchet) toggled between, and removed their togs in films of both, the comedy and horror genres...and to some none was more tantalizing than one Edwidge Fenech, to whom the book devotes 30 of its 326 pages. The DVD labels Blue Underground and NoShame (the lack of any new releases from the latter since late 2006 can't be a good sign) have a fair sampling of Fenech's horror output covered, and very well (The Case of the Bloody Iris and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh are particularly recommended), but the examples of her comedic work on domestic DVD are all over the map, quality wise; the best renderings are, alas, of lukewarm pictures: NoShame's discs of Ubalda, All Naked and Warm and Giovannona Long-Thigh.

This points to what one might call the thing about Italian sex comedies—in my experience, looking at stills from them is a lot more fun than watching the films themselves. Their humor tends toward the, um, broad, and the one trope that every Italian sex comedy seems to find absolutely hysterical is pairing a spectacularly attractive woman with a thoroughly goofy looking man. These fellows of course appear in the book as well—mookish Aido Maccione; Mario Carotenuto, who looks like Leslie Nielsen reconstructed after a thresher accident; and chinless wonder Alvaro Vitali (pictured), to whom Seth Rogen is Tyrone Power.
There are some exceptions—the Ursula Andress-starring The Sensuous Nurse is in fact a funny and sharp comedy of manners that incorporates the erotic element seamlessly to the narrative—but they're rare. I still hold out hope for Sergio Martino's Fenech-starring Cream Puffs, if I can ever see it. (As for whatever happened to Fenech, she left acting and went into producing—one of her recent credits is on Michael Radford's Pacino-starring Merchant of Venice—and did a bit part in the deplored-by-many Hostel II, playing the art teacher who introduces the film's heroines to the agent of their doom. Nice!)

In the meantime, you can order your own copy of Commedia Sexy All'Italiana, albeit in a NSFW fashion, here. And in case you are wondering just what Fenech is saying to you, and only you...

P.S.:"How's the accompanying CD?" you may ask. I have no idea.

Comments

[Michael]

Great. And finally Glenn Kenny has listened to the Hostel II commentary with Quentin Tarantino. ;)

[Glenn Kenny]

Actually, I haven't. My time isn't exactly unlimited. But it's certainly on my "to do" list...

[Aaron Hillis]

Edwige F. has long made me happy in my bathing suit areas, but that's "What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body?" to you... and speaking of which, please tell me Diablo Cody's "Jennifer's Body" is not making that reference.