Exploring love, sex and marriage in contemporary mid-'70s Italy.Exploring love, sex and marriage in contemporary mid-'70s Italy.Exploring love, sex and marriage in contemporary mid-'70s Italy.
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HOW FUNNY CAN SEX BE? is an Italian film originally called SESSOMATTO ("Crazy Sex") and features Giancarlo Giannini, well-known from his films with Lina Wertmuller, and co-star Laura Antonelli. Originally a movie of eleven segments, it has been cut down to eight. In each brief episode we watch Giannini in some kind of sexual escapade, predicament, or buffoonery, from a bout with an overweight Milanese drag queen to an erotic dream about a nun (Antonelli) at a hospital where he has volunteered as an artificial insemination donor. Although there is an occasional moment or two of genuine wit and humor, I found the bulk of this movie stupid, sophomoric, and tasteless. And the English dubbing is so horrendously atrocious, it seems that we are listening to the soundtrack from another movie. So how funny can sex be? Pretty funny, I guess, but you'll never learn from this turkey of a movie. Veteran director Dino Risi (of IL SORPASSO fame) directed. He has done much better.
Some short episodes unrelated to each other that tell relationships of love and sex with a thousand different facets, sometimes goliardic, sometimes sad.
This movie is probably one of the worst I've ever seen. It is made up of short sketches that turns around sex and some perversion but they were badly executed. In the first place there were three main actors who are the leads of every sketch but I didn't buy their performance even a little bit. Then the audio and image quality was very low, even for a '70s movie. But the worst problem is that this film should be a comedy but I almost never laugh for a joke inside of it because the comedic writing and timing were really bad. Instead I laugh a lot for the ugliness of this film. Once you see this one, it will easily become a legend, something that you'll never forget, a new standard for horrible movies. At least I didn't find the willingness to make a film to take seriously but it isn't also something merely intended to be trash.
In conclusion I suggest this movie to everyone who wants to laugh on how not to make movies.
One of the innumerable portmanteau films produced in Italy since the 1950s; many had been helmed by multiple directors and featured the most popular film stars of the time. Some other examples, however, were made by one director as a vehicle for a particular star's versatility (for instance, Nino Manfredi in Lina Wertmuller's LET'S TALK ABOUT MEN [1965]). This one, in fact, follows the latter trend and featured Giancarlo Giannini and Laura Antonelli in all (but one, in her case) nine segments. However, with the 70s, a lot of vulgarity had seeped into Italian comedy and, with a title like that, the film under review here certainly falls into this category - despite the respectable fare with which both Risi and Giannini were typically associated!
Anyway, quality varies a lot from one episode to the other: perhaps the best were Nos. 2 (concerning an overcrowded poor family, with the stars bursting into spontaneous insults every now and again), 3 (in which Giannini, married to the luscious Antonelli, actually prefers to offer sexual favors to old ladies!), 4 (Giannini is a playboy who's unstoppable in a mobile environment - trains, boats - but actually impotent in bed...so his wife proposes to use the elevator of their hotel, with tragic results!) and 8 (the longest segment and the one in which Antonelli doesn't appear, where a man goes to meet his brother - whom he hasn't seen in years - and falls for a transvestite hooker played by Alberto Lionello, with a surprising denouement). The other episodes aren't too bad, either (one, where Antonelli plays a nun[!], is spoken in gibberish and seems to have been inspired by A CLOCKWORK ORANGE [1971]) - but the repetition and, eventually, the film's considerable length becomes tiresome. Still, Armando Trovajoli's score (including its suggestive title track) is notable.
Anyway, quality varies a lot from one episode to the other: perhaps the best were Nos. 2 (concerning an overcrowded poor family, with the stars bursting into spontaneous insults every now and again), 3 (in which Giannini, married to the luscious Antonelli, actually prefers to offer sexual favors to old ladies!), 4 (Giannini is a playboy who's unstoppable in a mobile environment - trains, boats - but actually impotent in bed...so his wife proposes to use the elevator of their hotel, with tragic results!) and 8 (the longest segment and the one in which Antonelli doesn't appear, where a man goes to meet his brother - whom he hasn't seen in years - and falls for a transvestite hooker played by Alberto Lionello, with a surprising denouement). The other episodes aren't too bad, either (one, where Antonelli plays a nun[!], is spoken in gibberish and seems to have been inspired by A CLOCKWORK ORANGE [1971]) - but the repetition and, eventually, the film's considerable length becomes tiresome. Still, Armando Trovajoli's score (including its suggestive title track) is notable.
There are eight episodes in this sex comedy. The episodes are so short that they lack development, meaning, progression and are pretty boring. Although this is a "sex" comedy, and the subject is sex, the movie is practically PG-13. The subjects of the episodes are pretty repellent, with titles like "Sex in Shantytown". The actor Giancarlo Giannini plays each of the lead roles in the episodes, and his performances are really the only reason to watch this film.
Did you know
- TriviaItalian censorship visa # 63667 delivered on 11 December 1973.
- Alternate versionsThe "Torna Piccina Mia/My Piccina Returns" segment is missing from the Simitar Entertainment VHS.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Pasqualino Cammarata... capitano di fregata (1974)
- How long is How Funny Can Sex Be??Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Kein Platz für drei im Ehebett
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime
- 1h 37m(97 min)
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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