A standard film, billed as "a sexual romance", the film successfully tapped into the fashion for European mischief, and, as far as cinematic musings go, fills in bits of sentimental incidents and sexy situations not bad at all. Dealing with a recent chemistry graduate, so Andrés (Vicente Parra) tells his father (José Marco Davo) that he is not going to work in his prosperous company because he wants to be a priest. His father is strongly opposed, since he wants him to inherit the company with hundreds of workers, so he cannot accept his religious vocation in any way and decides to twist his plans with the help of his nephew Juan (Armand Mestral), but this is a drunk and a playboy who only likes money, he loves to party and conquer beautiful women (Agnes Laurent) with no engagements. So the swindler cousin Juan decides to take the pre-seminarist Andrés (Vicente Parra) to a nightclub, there he notices the beautiful French dancer Theresa (Agnes Laurent) and she also attracts the attention of the handsome young Andrés. Unfortunately, she falls in love with the playboy Juan (Mestral), and soon Andrés plans to get rid of his rival to claim the woman who has stolen his heart. While the international version was cut in 1963, when the film made its English-language debut in a drastically modified adaptation titled "Soft Skin on Black Silk", with new narrative and strip-tease footage inserted with many scenes from the original heavily edited, altered or deleted for its new premiere. The mix of suave criminal intrigue and sexy teasing was pretty standard for the time, done in the style of ¨And God Created Woman¨ (1956) by Roger Vadim with Bardot. This new montage was framed next to a beach in which a couple strikes up a conversation and she discovers that he is planning to get rid of the unfaithful woman in his life, so naturally, she takes him back to her house, where they sleep in bed. In this prologue, the young man: Ira Lewis, meets a beautiful woman: Edie Burke sunbathing topless by the ocean. The beach scenes add some erotic poetry to what would otherwise be a mere melodrama. The antics are interspersed with her telling a similar story of dangerous love. The new footage was directed by Radley Metzger, soon to become an acclaimed director in his own right, and the previous actors along with some new ones were appropriately spliced and dubbed to match the loop in the body of the film.
This is a twisted drama of an unusual romance with a lot of crosses and double-crosses among the trio of lovers ; this story has two versions, the Spanish quasi-religious one, and the slightly sexier international one. The Spanish version directed by José Antonio de la Loma is very light and has a deep religious feeling of guilt and redemption. The Spanish film is called ¨Un mundo para mí¨(1959) or ¨A World for Me¨ while the French version, without any overt nudity, to which is added some erotic images made by Radley Metzger, is stronger, but very light by current standards. This second version titled ¨Soft Skin on Black Silk¨ or ¨Tentaciones¨ in France has indisputably sexier scenes and a confusing plot, turning out to be an acceptable European co-production. The cast, led by rising sex bomb Agnes Laurent, was a mix of French and Spanish actors, with accredited performers such as Vicente Parra and José Marco Davó. Agnes Laurent provides a couple of fleeting erotic shots, such as changing clothes in the middle of a conversation for no apparent reason. It's understandable that the international version is a mixed bag with some burlesque bits huddled uncomfortably against each other, but overall this is a smooth and cohesive enough experience. For the most part, the footage shot by Metzger blends smoothly with the rest of the film, the inserted French scenes tending to haunt the viewer eager for mildly erotic flicks. So new viewers sit down to watch a show that quickly turns into a more kinky and bizarre performance filmed years later.
The film was professionally directed by José Antonio De La Loma and is definitely worth watching if you are a fan of old melodramas. Loma was a craftsman and true creator of the ¨quinqui subgenre¨. José Antonio De La Loma, with his usual sloppy style, filmed the successful trilogy: ¨Perros Callejeros I, II¨ and ¨Últimos Golpes Del Torete¨ and even made a female version: ¨Perras Callejeras¨. The style in these movies is quite urban and realistic both in the atmosphere and in the fresh dialogues and he tries to take a stand in favor of the outcasts. In fact, in his youth, De La Loma worked as a teacher in Barcelona's Chinatown and lived through poverty and isolation. Because he hired real criminals who used his peculiar slang and behaviors, they all lend a certain realism to these offbeat movies. His last film was ¨Tres Días De Libertad¨ which was lousily directed by Juan Antonio De La Loma who had a long career, including several pictures as a writer/producer or director and making movies in all kinds of genres.
