Submission (1976)
"Scandalo" (original title)

1940 France just before the great invasion. Eliane is a pharmacist who is married to her dull husband and has a teenage daughter. Eliane is an attractive woman who has let her passion fall ... See full summary »

Director:

Salvatore Samperi

Writers:

Ottavio Jemma (screenplay), Salvatore Samperi (screenplay)

Stars:

Franco Nero, Lisa Gastoni, Raymond Pellegrin

Cast

Cast overview:
Franco Nero	...	Armand
Lisa Gastoni	...	Eliane Michoud
Raymond Pellegrin	...	Professor Henri Michoud
Andréa Ferréol	...	Juliette
Claudia Marsani	...	Justine Michoud
Antonio Altoviti	...	Colonel
Carla Calò	...	Carmen
Franco Patano	...	Charles

Storyline

1940 France just before the great invasion. Eliane is a pharmacist who is married to her dull husband and has a teenage daughter. Eliane is an attractive woman who has let her passion fall dormant. One evening, the pharmacy clerk makes a pass at her when he thinks she is another girl. Soon she lets the passion overtake her and she soon becomes his sex slave.

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Plot Keywords:

pharmacy | sex | france | daughter | 1940s | 

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Taglines:

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

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 November 1976 (France)

Also Known As:

Submission

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Clesi Cinematografica

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Did You Know?

Trivia

Italian censorship visa #68163 delivered on 26-3-1976.

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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.
[...]

User Reviews

Not entirely original, but powerful Italian art film

During the 1940 invasion of France by Germany, a bourgeois housewife (Lisa Gastoni) becomes involved with an employee (Franco Nero) of the pharmacy the family runs, after the latter sexually gropes her in the dark, mistaking her for her maid with whom he is also sexually involved. As the Nazis approach, the sexual relationship between the two becomes increasingly dark, perverse, and sadomasochistic. He makes her stand naked outside on the street until a passerby sees her, and he tries to force her into a three-way with the maid. Eventually he pressures her to "deliver" her virginal teenage daughter to him.

As another reviewer remarked, it's no coincidence that this movie takes place during France's eventual capitulation to Germany. The metaphor shouldn't be lost on anyone. This movie somewhat resembles the director Salvatore Samperi's most well-known work "Malizia" (with Laura Antonelli). The end especially with the lights flickering off and on as the German mortar fire approaches very much resembles the violent thunderstorm finale of "Malizia". But this movie is even darker and more apocalyptic (or perhaps nihilistic). The relationship between the couple is much more perverse than that of the maid and the teenage boy in "Malizia", even approaching the existential emptiness of Calveani's "The Night Porter" or the bleak tragedy of Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris". The subplot with the daughter, on the other hand, actually resembles an earlier Lisa Gastoni vehicle, Fernidand DiLeo's "The Seduction". But that movie was much more exploitative with the adolescent girl being much more of a willing Lolita (and played by sexy older actress). This is a more an art film, and the girl here is a true innocent caught up in the couple's obsessive relationship and the collapse of the whole social order in the wake of the German invasion.

The greatest strength of this movie though lies in the performance of the two leads. Gastoni gives a performance that's even more powerful and daring than the one she gave in "The Seduction". Nero meanwhile plays against type as the sexually corrupt villain--only in Pasquale Campanile Festa's "Hitch-hike" did the charismatic and likable Nero play such a thoroughly unlikeable character. Clearly, this movie deserves a better DVD release as others have said (one that both looks good AND has decent English subtitles), but it is worth seeing regardless.