Discreet packaging and excellent performance by the actors do not make this classic of Mariano Laurenti’s eroticism with Edwige Fenech and Pippo Franco so worn by time
In 1971, the Boccaccio masterpiece by Pier Paolo Pasolini “The Decameron”, the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, also surprisingly became the second highest grossing of the season, behind the unstoppable “… they kept calling it Trinit” and in front of none other than to “Agent 007 – A cascade of diamonds”. The Italian copycat industry, which had already capitalized on the explosion of western spaghetti and partly on the newborn “Argentian” yellow, thus found itself with a new and potentially profitable trend in its hands: the so-called “decamerotic”, which with hindsight had as prodromes “La Mandragola” (1965, by Alberto Lattuada) and above all the misunderstood and remarkable “The pleasant nights” (1966, by Armando Crispino and Luciano Lucignani), already based on a collection of licentious short stories from the 16th century signed by Giovanni Francesco Straparola from Bergamo.
Of the poetry of the first film of the “Trilogy of Life”Of PPP, obviously, the producers of the time did not know what to do with it; but of the comic / erotic result of a mostly medieval environment (contaminated by the sheepish fold that in the meantime certain Italian comedy was already taking) instead s: and in the year of grace 1972 a crowd of directors of the cadet series threw themselves headlong into the production of over thirty disposable films along the lines of the noble progenitor: from real (and miserable) apocryphal sequels (such as “Decameron n2 – The other short stories of Boccaccio” by Mino Guerrini, “Decameron n3 – The most beautiful women del Boccaccio “by Italo Alfaro” or “Decameron n4 – The beautiful stories of Boccaccio” by Paolo Bianchini) to slender comedies – almost always VM18 – interpreted by third category cast with a side of procacious Carneadian beauties, with a sustained and characterized vulgarity rate with long and increasingly hyperbolic and allusive titles (such as “Sollazzevole stories of pleasure-seeking wives and penitent husbands – Decameron n69”, by Aristide Massaccesi, “Fratello Homo Sorella Bona – Nel Boccaccio superproibito”, Mario Sequi, “… and only Aretino Pietro was saved, with one hand in front and the other behind”, by Silvio Amadio, and the epic “Put your devil in my hell” by Bitto Albertini).
All works destined not to leave a trace or almost in the seething history of Italian genre cinema. Except one: “That great piece of Ubalda all naked and all hot”, released on 12 October 1972, by the brave Mariano Laurenti (1929-2022), former director of Franco and Ciccio and later destined to become one of the undisputed cornerstones of sexy comedy to the Italian DOC (that, to be clear, of the pochade os distinguished by the naked showers of divas such as Fenech, Guida, Bouchet and Cassini and by the jokes of Banfi, Vitali, Montagnani & co.). The subject (written by the producer Luciano Martino with the screenwriters Tito Carpi and Carlo Veo and set in an unspecified Middle Ages) sees the fearful leader Olimpio de’Pannocchieschi (Pippo Franco) unexpectedly returning to the village after having fought in a war. The man immediately hopes that his wife Fiamma (Karin Schubert) will give herself to him by putting an end to his long period of abstinence; but the woman (who during the absence of her spouse did not remain idle) hides behind a fifteen-day vow, hiding the keys of the chastity belt from him. Olimpio falls in love with him, after making peace with the pugnacious neighbor Oderisi (Umberto D’Orsi), his wife Ubalda (Edwige Fenech), who tries in vain and daring to seduce. But their fates will be dramatic. A strangely moralistic epilogue closes a coarse but at times bubbly farce, made up of many nudes mostly alluded to and as many double meanings today in rose water, which sees for the first time the good Pippo Franco engaged in a leading role and definitively ferries the Italian career of the beautiful Fenech (voiced by Rita Savagnone) from thriller to comedy glories.
At the same time effective and already active for some time Schubert instead it got worse: he never really managed to emerge in Serie A cinema (despite starring in a large series of subsequent films) and in the following decade she became much more famous as a porn star. Nothing to go into raptures about, of course, but the public liked it: almost a billion lire was collected at the time, compared to a cost of only one hundred million. The discreet care of the packaging (with photography in CinemaScope by Clemente Santoni, appropriate music by Bruno Nicolai and beautiful costumes by Oscar Capponi) and the professionalism of the acting (including that of the numerous character actors) still contribute to making him one of the most appreciable representatives of the genre. ; and perhaps the only one able to give a little viewing pleasure even today (as evidenced by the innumerable television replicas of the derubricated version with some cuts that for at least forty years have fueled many night schedules even in the era of digital TV). Although, today, a cinema so objectifying and where sex “naively voyeuristic, never liberated and ultimately punitive” (P. Mereghetti), can exist only as a bizarre vintage relic. And it is no less looked at sideways (for very different and more ideological / contemporary reasons than the accusations of “obscenity” made at the time) than it was during its ephemeral “splendor”.
October 12, 2022 (change October 12, 2022 | 07:26 am)
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