My bid to watch the entire output of British cult director Norman J. Warren continues with HER PRIVATE HELL which, like LOVING FEELING, is a slight and rather insubstantial piece of filmmaking. It's shot in black and white and is quite well directed for the most part, so it's a pity that the story is so tame and small scale. Certainly not the drama that the title would have you believe.
The story is about an Italian girl who arrives in London looking for fame and fortune. Instead she becomes a model at a small fashion house, where over time she falls for the photographer and is coerced into posing topless. That's it; that's the thrust of the movie. HER PRIVATE HELL was made at the tail-end of the 1960s, a permissive era in which censorship was thankfully beginning to recede, so it's mildly explicit for the period with some sex scenes and topless nudity.
Other than that, there's very little to remember. The male characters are all sleazy and horrible and the less said about them the better. The script is unremarkable and seems to have been written in a hurry. Lucia Modugno is acceptable as the lead, but I never warmed to her character and I don't know whether that's due to the writing, her acting, or the direction. I appreciate that Warren made his film for very little money, but he could have made it more dramatic and thus more memorable.
