High School Girl (1974) User Reviews

Sergio Martino made a teen sex movie?

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 10 June 2021]

Cugini Carnali translates as First Cousins, but this movie was also titled The Visitor, Hot and Bothered, La Prima, Loving Cousins and High School Girl.

This is the story of Nico d'Altamura (Alredo Pea, who was also in two other commedia sexy all'italiana, the Dagmar Lassander-starring Classe Mista and the Edwige Fenech movie The School Teacher), who is a shy sixteen year old who falls in love with his city-born cousin Sonia (Susan Player, Invasion of the Bee Girls, Malibu Beach).

This comes from director Sergio Martino, who you may know better from his early 70s master class on making giallo - Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, All the Colors of the Dark, Torso, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion's Tail - or his sexy bedroom movies with Edwige Fenech.

Nico comes from a more provincal family than Sonia and while his parents are strict, they have their secrets. His father is sleeping with the family maid (Rosalba Neri, Lady Frankenstein) and also waiting for their uncle to die, but he keeps alive either out of spite or to keep sleeping with prositutes. When Sonia comes to town, she causes a scandal by wearing miniskirts to church and sunbathing nude, but let's face it, Nico has no idea what he's in for.

Martino was a genre hopper. The year following this movie, he made two poliziotteschi (Gambling City and Silent Action), a giallo (The Suspicious Death of a Minor) and Sex With a Smile, which features Barbara Bouchet, Fenech and Marty Feldman. This may not be his best movie, but it's not his worst.

"Sexy Relatuions"

[lazarillo · 16 December 2009]

This is rather unusual sex comedy for director Sergio Martino. While Martino was a master of the genre, he was mostly known for the goofy screwball bedroom farces he made with actors like Edwige Fenech or Lino Banfi. This movie, however, is a more subtle, serious, and very Italian-flavored "erotic family" comedy-drama, the kind of film more commonly associated with directors like Salvatore Samperi.

The protagonist is a provincial adolescent boy who has just graduated high school, but still lives with his parents.His parents are strict and religious in the typical provincial manner, but also hypocrites--his father, for instance, is not only messing around with the voluptuous family maid (Rosa Neri), but he pushes HER aside in favor of a pretty local teenager he hires to, um, help out around the villa. The entire family meanwhile is waiting for a wealthy, bedridden old uncle (the protagonist's godfather) to die, so they can inherit his castle and fortune, but the old man is contemptuous of his relatives and determined to spend all his money on local hookers. The real drama starts though when the wife's no-account brother shows up from Rome and drops off his adolescent daughter (the protagonist's cousin) in order that she can finish her studies undistracted by the temptations of the big city. The fast, blonde "carnal cousin" (Susan Player) drives the protagonist to distraction and creates a scandal throughout the entire town as she constantly dresses in panty-flashing miniskirts and sans bra (even in church!), and sunbathes nude on the roof of the family villa. Worst of all, she starts messing around with the protagonist's friend, a muscle-headed lady-killer just back from military service.

This is not one of Martino's best films. He seems a little bit out of his element. (And on top of that, the version I saw suffered both from horrid dubbing and an incompetent pan-and-scan full-screen TV transfer). Rosalba Neri is criminally wasted. This voluptuous Italian beauty is not remotely believable as a domestic servant (but I guess that's par for the course in these kinds of films). The bigger problem is she just has a very inconsequential part for such a talented actress (Although she does have one memorable scene where she gives a bath to the new young mistress of her lover/employer while he watches). Susan Player, however, has a great--I mean, is a great--asset to the film. She's very cute and sexy and there's a lot more to her teasing minx of a character than first meets the eye. This obscure American actress is best known for 70's American drive-in fare like "The Pom-Pom Girls" and "Malibu Beach". Somehow though she ended up starring in this very Italian movie and she was also in the British-Spanish film "Las Adolescentes".

This is not a great film by a long shot, but I would still be interested in seeing a better-looking version of it.

Not bad!

[RodrigAndrisan · 7/10 · 8 January 2020]

It's obvious that Susan Player have put her soul and body in order to embody her character. So did Alfredo Pea, who tried his best to be convincing. Riccardo Cucciolla, an extraordinary actor in all the films I saw, is very good in the role of the father. The movie is more Drama than Comedy. The Drama of the struggle with the temptations of sex at the tender age of adolescence.