Scandalo (1976)

Director:

Salvatore Samperi

Writers:

Ottavio Jemma (screenplay)
Salvatore Samperi (screenplay)

Release Date:

February 1977 (Turkey)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The more erotic it gets... the more beautiful it feels.

Plot:

1940 France just before the great invasion. Eliane (Lisa Gastoni) is a pharmacist who is married to her dull husband and has a teenage daughter...

Plot Keywords:

Female To Male Foot In Crotch | Exploitation | Bombing | Masochism | Glass

Cast

Franco Nero	...	Armand
Lisa Gastoni	...	Eliane Michoud
Raymond Pellegrin	...	Professor Henri Michoud
Andréa Ferréol	...	Juliette
Claudia Marsani	...	Justine Michoud
Antonio Altoviti
Carla Calò	...	Carmen
Franco Patano
Laura Nicholson

Also Known As:

Scandal (USA)
Submission

Runtime:

USA:110 min (English version) | France:110 min | USA:107 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) | Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-18 | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Clesi Cinematografica

Quotes:

[first lines]
[crowd cheers a parade of departing troops]
Juliette: Bon voyage! Viva la France!
Marching Soldier: [to Armand] Draft dodger!
Armand: [makes obscene gesture to soldier]
[turns to a laughing Juliette and playfully slaps her behind]
Juliette: Don't touch, draft dodger.
Armand: In five minutes, I see you in the back.
Juliette: If you're lucky, big boy.
Armand: Always.
[...]

A political allegory

Yes, this movie is very sexy, but unlike 9 1/2 Weeks to which it has been compared, this one has real depth. The sexually charged submission is meant not merely for titillation, but also to underscore the connection between violence and submission. The fact that the movie is set in France during the opening years of WWII is not coincidental. Yes, it's fair game to an extent to refer to the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" but as this movie shows, there are two sides to submitting to another's will.

The movie examines how the French and so many others could so easily give away their freedom and perhaps even come to enjoy it on a certain level. Look around you today: Polls show that a staggering majority of Americans are still willing and eager to give up certain rights in freedom and privacy in exchange for the promise of security and protection. This movie, and when I saw it was under the title "Submission" takes that frightening concept to its logical, or perhaps illogical, extreme. Would any of us walk naked down a street if an employee ordered us to? Yes, we would, provided we were getting something in return.

In the movie, the shopowner is outwardly forceful, even intimidating, to most people. Beneath that lies a deep sense of wanting to be taken care of. Watch this movie at first for the truly erotic qualities, but then watch it again with an eye toward its deeper levels of meaning. That it can be enjoyed as a particularly perverse soft-core sex flick and also as one of the most subversive political statements made on film during the 70s is a testament to its power.