Moglie di mio padre, La (1976)

Director:

Andrea Bianchi

Writers:

Andrea Bianchi (screenplay)
Andrea Bianchi (story)

Release Date:

4 August 1976 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Erotica | Sex

Cast

Carroll Baker	...	Laura
Adolfo Celi	...	Antonio Lenzini
Cesare Barro	...	Claudio
Luigi Pistilli	...	Doctor
Gabriella Giorgelli	...	Prostitute
Dada Gallotti
Caterina Barbero
Carla Spessato
Femi Benussi	...	Patrizia
Jenny Tamburi	...	Diana

Also Known As:

Confessions of a Frustrated Housewife (UK)
Laura
My Father's Wife

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technospes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Bormio, Sondrio, Lombardia, Italy

Company:

Capitol International

dull incest melodrama with side-benefits

It seems that a whole sub-genre existed in 70's Italian cinema tentatively tackling incest and other sexual aberrations in straightforward melodramatic form (see also "The Dark Side of Love", etc.) This may be due to the influence of "Last Tango", which is referred to directly by one of the characters here. Films taking advantage of Carroll Baker's exploitable name and aging body constitute a parallel Italian sub-genre of the time, and this film marks their merger. As usual, Baker plays a cheating wife (with her own stepson, nonetheless!), though her indiscretion is quite understandable considering her faithless and feckless businessman husband.

Director Bianchi made an entertaining giallo ("Strip Nude For Your Killer") and a minor cult horror item ("Night Hair Child"), but apart from a rather unexpected ending and his usual political incorrectness, he doesn't add much panache to the matter-of-fact tale.

There are a couple of diversions, thank goodness. Femi Benussi, who spent most of the aforementioned giallo in a too-tight bikini and then stark naked, sports a snazzy, straight-haired black wig that makes her more fetching than usual (though she seems to be wearing that same unflattering bikini again). Best of all is another caddish performance by Luigi Pistilli, playing a similar misanthrope to the one he incisively portrayed in another fine giallo, "Gently Before She Dies". He plays a womanizing doctor who doesn't take his Hippocratic oath at face value, and loves to invent sexy games to loosen up his rather staid bourgeois party guests. Too bad the whole picture wasn't about him.