Sex with a Smile (1976)

Five short comic sketches, all unrelated to each other, except that they are all expressions of Italian sexual humor. In one sketch, Marty Feldman plays a bodyguard, hired by her father to ... See full summary »

Director:

Sergio Martino

Writers:

Tonino Guerra (screenplay), Tonino Guerra (story)

Stars:

Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, Dayle Haddon

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Barbara Bouchet	...	The Woman (segment "I soldi in banca")
Edwige Fenech	...	Emilia Chiapponi (segment "La cavallona")
Dayle Haddon	...	Marina (segment "La guardia del corpo")
Alberto Lionello	...	Filippo, the "Catch It While It's Hot" male (segment "L'attimo fuggente")
Aldo Maccione	...	Adriano Serpetti, the "Dog's Day" male (segment "Un posto tranquillo")
Tomas Milian	...	Cavaliere Marelli, the "Dream Girl" male (segment "La cavallona")
Enrico Montesano	...	Salvatore, the "One for the Money" male (segment "I soldi in banca")
Giovanna Ralli	...	Esmeralda (segment "L'attimo fuggente")
Sydne Rome	...	Marcella Fosne (segment "Un posto tranquillo")
Marty Feldman	...	Alex, the "Bodyguard" male (segment "La guardia del corpo")
Christian Aligny	...	Dracula (segment "La cavallona") (as Christian Alegny)
Salvatore Baccaro	...	Client at the bar (segment "La cavallona")
Fiammetta Baralla	...	Woman in the Bathroom (segment "I soldi in banca")
Mimmo Crao	...	François (segment "La guardia del corpo")
Franco Diogene	...	Ignazio, her husband (segment "I soldi in banca")

Storyline

Five short comic sketches, all unrelated to each other, except that they are all expressions of Italian sexual humor. In one sketch, Marty Feldman plays a bodyguard, hired by her father to watch a young woman; he watches her a little too closely. In another, while Barbara Bouchet's husband is out of town on business, a stranger offers her twenty million lire in return for sex. Three times he offers, three times she protests and then consents, only to find out in the end that both the man and his sixty million lire are -- oh, but that would spoil the ending. :-)

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Plot Keywords:

italian sex comedy | hot | sex scene | sexy | female nudity | 

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Taglines:

After you've tried everything else... try Sex with a Smile.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

9 January 1976 (Italy)

Also Known As:

Sex with a Smile

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Medusa Distribuzione

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min 109 min (1983)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Italian censorship visa # 67735 delivered on 9-1-1976.

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Quotes

Cavaliere Marelli: [having tied his dream woman to a bed] You fell into my diabolical trap, you gorgeous dummy. And now I'm going to investigate yours.

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Connections

Referenced in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

OK but not great

It's a little hard to judge this film given the painfully unfunny dubbing of the English-language version. The people that dubbed these things often didn't seem to take their jobs too seriously and this is especially true of these Italian comedies where they apparently felt they had to "add" to the humor by giving their characters stupid voices. Unfortunately, giving goofy voices to gorgeous foreign actresses like Barbara Bouchet and Edwige Fenech doesn't make the movie any funnier, just a lot less sexy. (Strangely, the one American here, Sydney Rome, doesn't seem to have been dubbed, but it's kind of hard to tell as she talks in a stupid and annoying voice naturally).

Conceptually and visually the humor is a bit stronger. The Tomas Milan character's coke-bottle glasses and hat with a long feather that becomes "erect" when he gets excited are not nearly as funny as the filmmakers seem to think, but the famously bug-eyed comedian Marty Feldman does some fine physical humor in "The Bodyguard" sketch about a bodyguard who takes his job VERY seriously, not leaving the side of his female charge even when she is in the bath or making love.

The movie does seem to heap a lot of humiliation on the most beautiful women in the cast (typical for Italian sex comedies I guess). Barbara Bouchet is tricked into having sex with a randy business partner of her husband in the first sketch (which is pretty clever, at least) and Edwige Fenech plays a society woman who accidentally has sex with the wrong partner, who turns out to be the most overweight and grotesque of the grotesque Italian men on the street corner that leer at her everyday as she walks by in tight skirts. If they absolutely had to humiliate the female cast members, they should have gone with the irritating Sydney Rome rather than class acts like Bouchet and Fenech, but Rome gets off pretty easy playing a sexy woman with a very vicious dog in the final sketch. OK movie, but not great