The Italians are often accused of ripping off American films. While there is a lot truth to that, it often works the other way as well (i.e. the American "slasher" films owe a great debt to Mario Bava's "Bay of Blood" and any number of other Italian gialli). Sometimes though the similarities are just a strange kind of synchronicity. If it hadn't been made years earlier I would swear this film was a rip-off of TWO different Brooke Shields movies. Unfortunately, those two films are "The Blue Lagoon" and "Endless Love".
Like "Endless Love" this is a film about a young, naive girl (played by Ornella Muti, who started out as an Italian Brooke Shields but turned out to be a daring and talented actress)who meets an older drifter (played by Allesandro Oranio, later Muti's real-life husband). She is from a wealthy industrial family, however, and, of course, her father does not approve. So far, so "Endless Love", but then the pair runs off together and end up on an island where nothing really interesting happens--just like in "The Blue Lagoon".
Ornella Muti is pretty good, although she doesn't really have much of a character here truth be told. Oranio is not bad, but he is such an effeminate pretty-boy (who was probably cast against Muti because she was one of the few girls prettier than he was)that it's hard to understand why her father would have found him so threatening. The great Italian character actor Luigi Pistilli is also in the cast as a cop searching for the runaway couple.
I suspect this movie was made later than than the IMDb release date says. It has this ridiculous late 70's disco-era prologue, which was obviously slapped on by the American distributor but it's still seems strange that they would wait seven or eight years to release a film stateside. Moreover though, Ornella Muti looks quite a bit older than she did in films like "Oasis of Fear" and "Appassionata". I would guess this film was made closer to 1975. It's not as good as "Oasis of Fear" and not nearly as twisted and perverse as more famous Muti films like "Appasionata" or "The Last Woman". Still I think her fans might enjoy it, if for no other reason than simply to see how far this incredible actress has come.
