lazarillo
Director Guliano Carnimeo directed one of the more memorable (if not necessarily one of the best) gialli, "The Case of the Bloody Irises", as well as interesting and unusual crime drama "Secrets of a Call Girl", both featuring Edwige Fenech. Here though he was apparently reduced to directing a "liceale" (high school-themed) Italian sex comedy. But instead of having Fenech as a sexy teacher or Gloria Guida as a sexy student, he has Carmen Russo playing the pampered young wife of a wealthy butcher who goes back to a private liceale in order to become "cultured". How ANYONE is going to become cultured at this place is hard to fathom. You have the usual gang of ridiculously overaged "students" who do nothing but pull stupid pranks and spy on Russo and her roommate (Cinzia DiPonti) as they shower. The "adults" are even bigger idiots: they include her husband who keeps trying to sneak into the school, the battle-axe of a headmistress who's so sexually frustrated she'll go to bed with an anatomy skeleton, an idiotic professor who Russo's character unaccountably has a crush on, and an enterprising janitor who makes money renting ladders and staging elaborate ruses to help people get in and out of the school.This is obviously a REALLY dumb movie, but that's kind of like complaining that the hard liquor you're drinking straight out of the bottle doesn't really taste very good--it's hardly the point. Carmen Russo has an incredible body and you get to see all of it several times. Same with Di Ponti (Miss Italy 1979) and several of the other girls. None of the actresses is nearly as talented as Edwige Fenech, or even Gloria Guida, but that's OK I guess. And at least Lino Banfi isn't in this--they more than fill the male idiocy quota without him.
Chip_douglas
This comedy can be broken down into 3 running gags. No 1: Carmen Russo loses her skirt. This happens before the opening credits are over and is repeated every 15 minutes or so (about half way through, Carmen gets a short break while some other girls lose theirs, but we soon get back to the main attraction). Russo certainly has a great behind, but unfortunately nothing else in this film ever makes the effort to reach above bottom level.Carmen's husband Arestide is an enormous pig (Renzo Montagnani), and ironically, a successful butcher. They are very well off, but trophy wife Valentina (as she is called in the film) wants to have an education. To be precise, she wants to learn from her favourite author, Proffesor Caponni (Enzo Robutti). Renzo is dismayed to learn she has enrolled at a private college and is starting the next morning. Once she takes her place in the school-banks, Russo immediately starts flirting with the professor in her extremely low cut sweater (zoom in alert). So much for serious studying. Since Aristide can't stand one night without Valentina, he repeatedly tries to penetrate the school wearing lame-o disguises. This is running gag no 2. The third and final gag revolves around Gustavo the janitor (Toni Ucci), being willing to do anything for the right price. He helps girls sneak out of their dorm and boys sneak in. Both Aristide and the professor pay up large amounts to get close to Valentina.Add to this the usual cast of sex starved caricatures lead by the trio of schoolboys peeping through the wall when Russo takes a shower (strangely enough, Alvaro Vitali is not among them). In an original twist, one of them is only interested in Valentina's roommate (Cinzia de Ponti), leaving the other two to compete with Aristide and the Prof. Yes, there is a scene where all of them are hiding in the girls (surprisingly spacious) sleeping quarters. Soon Carmen starts giving Professor Caponni the cold shoulder in favour of a young admirer, forcing him to try out a 'hilarious' fake suicide routine to get her attention. The scary female principal (Marisa Merlini) is initially after the prof herself, but when she fails to see through any of Renzo's disguises (from running gag no 2), she gets the hots for the various versions of him as well. In one convoluted case, she believes Aristide to be the ghost of Don Juan come back to life (don't ask).Meanwhile Valentina proves more interested in kissing boys than concentrating on her studying (this thing was written by three Italian males after all). At the sixty minute mark we get an enormous flatulence gag to end all fart joke. Also at this point, the various dressing up routines have overstayed their welcome. One or two might have been bearable, but this is getting ridiculous. By the time we get to the final (oral) exams, they are trying to mix and match the running gags, so we get the janitor in disguise as well as Renzo. When Russo loses her skirt for the umpteenth time even that has become tiresome. Nice coda though.6 out of 10
