La Religieuse de Monza

The invention of nunsploitation films? Anne Heywood as "The Nun of Monza" between Antonio Sabato and Hardy Krüger

When this Italian film, also known as "La monaca di Monza" and "The Lady Of Monza", was released in West German cinemas on January 16, 1970, it quickly became an enormous success. More than 3 million cinema tickets were sold, placing it at number 5 in the annual charts. How could this success be explained? For some time now, the so-called exploitation films with their drastic depictions in which sexual or violent acts were "exploited" on film have been a success at the box office. Why shouldn't such a concept be applied to the hidden life behind monastery walls? After all, the allegedly sinful lives of religious sisters and brothers have been a popular theme in literature since Boccaccio's "Decameron". But it's not that simple with this film. Director Eriprando Visconti (a nephew of the important director Luchino Visconti) put a lot of effort into the quality and equipment of the film. The actors are also convincing. And the great music comes from Ennio Morricone.

What is it all about anyway? Virginia de Leyva (Anne Heywood), a daughter from a very wealthy family, acts as abbess of a monastery in Monza, northern Italy, due to her family's financial influence. Of course, the other nuns in the convent don't necessarily like that. A lot of things aren't going well in the monastery, which doesn't go unnoticed by Father Paolo (Hardy Krüger), the nuns' busy confessor. The situation comes to a head when a young hothead from the neighborhood named Ossio (Antonio Sabato) seeks and finds protection in the monastery from the consequences of an outrage he himself committed. The attractive and extremely sexually active young man arouses great interest among the sisters. An evil intrigue ensues, in the course of which the uninhibited Springinsfeld is enabled by jealous nuns to rape the unsuspecting abbess. Virginia's response to this outrageous act is not without far-reaching consequences for everyone involved.

This all sounds a lot like gossip, the exploitation of sex and violence. Some things are shown quite drastically, but it's always about the secular and church machinations in the background. There is a lot of talking in this film, so the violent actions are by no means the focus.

A big plus of this film are the excellent actors: the British Anne Heywood (seen alongside Pierre Brasseur and Daniel Gelin in the peplum film "Carthage in Flames" (1960)) is convincing as the ambivalently portrayed Virginia de Leyva, based on her life story (1575 -1650) the plot is designed. Her Virginia is torn between hot-blooded passion (in the form of Antonio Sabato) and cool bigotry (convincingly played by Hardy Krüger), but she ultimately finds the way to her own inner independence.

The attractive Antonio Sabato (after his nomination for the Golden Globe in 1967 as best young actor in the film "Grand Prix" he was a busy ItaloCinema star in the 1970s in spanking films such as "Zwei Schlitzohren in der gelben Hölle / Two Rascals in the Yellow Hell" (1974) with Brad Harris or in EuroCrime-Poliziotteschi hits like "Blutiger Schweiß / Poliziotti violenti" (1976)) is "naturally" convincing as a man whom women apparently cannot resist, even when violence is used. But his Giampaolo Ossio is by no means the image of a violent macho monster, although understanding of his character is very limited.

The exceptional German actor and GOLDEN GLOBE nominee Hardy Krüger (as Maria Schell's husband in "Solange Du da bist" (1952) or as a rowdy big game hunter in "Hatari" (1962) alongside John Wayne and Elsa Martinelli) impresses as a bigoted confessor who gives the lustful one a tormented look He has to watch the goings-on in the monastery, even though he himself has his eye on the beautiful abbess. Luigi Pistilli and Laura Belli can be seen in other roles in the film, which is exceptionally well cast.

Even though it is at the beginning of a development, this film is not a typical representative of the nunsploitation film. It's too well made and too subtle for that. But he knows how to shock and wants to do so. It worked at the box office at the time. Now it's time to see this seemingly forgotten classic again.

I found this film to be pompous hogwash: much more honest and interesting films dealing with the same subject matter have been made by exploitation directors like Jess Franco and Joe D'Amato. Try Franco's The Sex Demons, Joe D'Amato's Images in a Convent, Mingozzi's Flavia the Heretic, or Bruno Mattei's True Story of the Nun of Monza. In fact, Franco, at his best, could run circles around so-called "serious" directors who churned out pretentious "respectable" films such as this one. Skip it and stick with the others I named. And if you like them, you might want to branch out and try some of their other works, such as Franco's Soledad Miranda trilogy.

In all honesty, I have to point out right away that this user-comment starts out with an error in its title. "The Nun of Monza" is not exactly the very first nunsploitation movie ever made. There's at least one (and perhaps some others that I totally don't know about) movie handling about the same topic, and it predates this version with more than five years. Only that movie – also named "The Nun of Monza" – is more difficult to track down than the lost continent of Atlantis and I doubt it'll ever be available in a decent version. In general, Eriprando Visconti's film may be considered the pioneer of nunsploitation, as it got released a couple years before the sub genre's most famous titles like Ken Russell's "The Devils", Jess Franco's "The Sex Demons" and Gianfranco Mingozzi's "Flavia The Heretic". And particularly because it was the first of its kind, you better not expect to see a movie filled with perverted sex scenes and explicit violence! Filmmakers like the aforementioned Jess Franco or Joe D'Amato made the term "nunsploitation" a synonym with pure sleaze, as the setting offers an easy excuse to show loads of lesbian sex, insane devil-worshiping rituals and brutal whippings. "The Nun of Monza", however, is a very serious and devastating drama, based on true events that took place early in 17th Century in Italy and emphasizing on the hypocrisy and abuse of power of the Catholic Church. The story is incredibly convoluted and often difficult to follow, but at the same time truly fascinating and the recreation of time & era are brilliant. Spaniards occupied the whole of Italy and even the poorest inhabitants of small villages are forced to pay taxes. The young sister Virginia de Leyva is Mother Superior against her will and her convent offers refugee to a handsome stud that killed a Spanish tax collector. During his stay at the convent, Giampaolo rapes Virginia and gets thrown in jail. When she gives birth to a daughter nine months later, Virginia and Giampaolo flee together, also charged with the murder of a fellow convent sister. The story is far more detailed than this, with treasonous characters and sexual corruption behind every convent door, but it's too much to summarize here. For as far as I remember the stuff my high-school history teacher attempted to tell me, the political background of this film is accurate to the tiniest detail. It's also a very well made film, especially considering the low production values! The cinematography and decors are extremely stylish and the film also benefits from a splendid Ennio Morricone score. The acting is great with Antonio Sabato ("Seven Blood-Stained Orchids") and Anne Heywood ("What Waits Below") bringing an amazing and plausible chemistry on screen. A beautiful movie, but certainly not for all tastes.

Nunsploitation is certainly one of the more bizarre cult cinema genres, and The Nun of Monza may well be the first film to be made of this kind. I wont profess to be a huge fan of this genre, although there are several good examples; Images in a Convent and School of the Holy Beast being the best that I've seen. This one is an early example and as is often the case with pioneering films, it's not as lurid as some of the later ones made by the likes of Jess Franco and Joe D'Amato and takes an approach that gives more weight to the storyline; though The Nun of Monza does still feature most of the nunsploitation trademarks. The plot will be familiar to anyone who knows anything about this type of film and focuses on a young girl who is accused of wrongdoing by a sleazy priest and packed off to a convent for wayward girls. However, the people in charge of this convent don't adhere to the normal Christian teachings and the girl soon finds herself unable to escape from the devil worshippers, lesbians and general deviance that plagues the convent...

Unlike the later nunsploitation flicks, this one is actually a 'serious' attempt at a film and it has t be said that director Eriprando Visconti has done a good job with it. The cinematography is superb and most of the scenes are well staged. Anne Heywood does very well in the lead role and convinces as the young girl at the centre of the tale while receiving good feedback from a supporting cast lead by Antonio Sabato. The sleaze elements in this film are not the main focal point, but we still get treated to some lesbianism, torture and devil worship. The sequence in which the devil is conjured is one of the best in the movie. I must admit I prefer nunsploitation that is more along the lines of Images in a Convent - i.e. where the focus is on nudity and sleaze, but the other side of nunsploitation can be good if done correctly; and that is certainly the case with this film. Nun of Monza is for my money at the top end of the nunsploitation genre; I realise that's not saying a great deal considering some of the films in the genre, but this early one still beats off a lot of the competition. Recommended.

The first time I became aware of this film's medieval erotic/religious/political narrative was via the VHS of a soft-core version of the same events called DEVILS OF MONZA (1986); other Italian adaptations were made in 1947, 1962 (perhaps the best-regarded of the lot – a viewing of which, incidentally, followed soon after this one), 1980 (directed by notorious "Euro-Cult" exponent Bruno Mattei!) and even a TV mini-series in 2004. Having preceded it by another "Nunsploitationer" – the slightly superior ABBESS OF CASTRO (1974) – one can see how the genre was thematically limited, but an obvious exploitation goldmine which bloomed at this particular time when a laxity in censorship made itself felt. In fact, the plots of both films have much in common – where the Mother Superior (in this case, Anne Heywood) is impregnated (rather than by a Bishop, here it's fugitive Antonio Sabato) and eventually victimized, more than anything else for political reasons; still, the corrupt cleric is still presented in the person of Hardy Kruger as the convent's Spiritual Director! As was the case with both the afore-mentioned ABBESS OF CASTRO and the even more notable FLAVIA, THE HERETIC (1974) – all of which were watched during the course of a singe day! – THE NUN OF MONZA's main assets are the prestigious names roped in to shoot and score it (Luigi Kuveiller and Ennio Morricone respectively); on the other hand, the career co-writer/director Visconti (despite being the nephew of celebrated auteur Luchino) did not amount to much! Anyway, Heywood is decent in the lead (looking startlingly like Giovanna Ralli from the 1962 version and who would go on to appear in THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL aka THE NUN AND THE DEVIL [1973]), but Sabato fatally lacks conviction as the man for whom she pretty much loses her soul (actually, their affair begins by his rape of her – bafflingly condoned by two fellow nuns who subsequently flee the convent with Sabato and, later still, are killed by him!). Sadly, Kruger is not given much to do in spite of the complexity of his role; also on hand are Giovanna Galletti (Baroness Graps from Mario Bava's KILL, BABY…KILL! [1966]) as the stricter nun who succeeds Heywood, Pier Paolo Capponi (later ascending to leading man for ABBESS OF CASTRO), a blonde Rita Calderoni as Sabato's jilted fiancée (I should be getting her NUDE FOR Satan [1974] soon, which promises to be pure "Euro-Cult" wackiness) and, oddly uncredited since both roles have considerable prominence, Carla Gravina (as yet another nun who makes the list of Sabato's conquests) and Luigi Pistilli (as a nobleman relative of Heywood's). While certainly watchable, the film is rather dull overall (especially considering that it is nowhere near as explicit as later genre outings) – though the poor English-dubbing may have also contributed to my dissatisfaction; even so, we get some unexpected moments of violence (Gravina is given a solid thrashing and thrown down flight of stairs by her fellow nuns who, in turn, end up on the receiving end of Sabato's ire as already mentioned) and Heywood's own fate – walled up alive in a darkened room – seems exceedingly harsh under the circumstances.