Il corpo della ragassa

Lili Carati plays the sexy and virginal, although not necessarily innocent, daughter of a poor delivery driver. After making a delivery to a brothel, her widower father brings home an ill, over-the-hill prostitute who wants to recover in the country. The prostitute befriends the girl and gives her her first lessons in manipulating men. The girl then goes to work as a maid for a pompous windbag professor, and then the movie kind of turns into "Pygmalion"/"My Fair Lady" (at least, if the "Henry Higgins" character was an incorrigible lech and a pervert).

Even for 1978 Italy this movie is pretty old-fashion in its attitude towards men and women (compare it, for instance, to the much more modern "Avere Vent'ani" which Carati appeared in the same year). Still it is relatively sophisticated as far Italian sex comedies go. It was directed by Pasquale Campanile Festa, a director who may not of have been on the top tier of "comedia alla'Italia" directors like Fellini, Antonioni, or Pasolini, but was certainly only a mere step down, in the company of Dino Risi and Massimo Dallamano. Lili Carati,had an, um, interesting career trajectory, starting out as a Miss Italy finalist and ending up in hardcore porn(!). She is actually pretty good here and certainly a lot better than I've previously given her credit for. Her character is like a particularly desirable lump of clay that all the other characters try to mold, but she is resilient enough to survive them all. (And, of course, she has her usual plethora of nude scenes).

Italian sex comedies aren't for everybody, of course (I'm not sure sometimes, they're really for me), but this is one of the better ones I've seen.