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Plot: two sisters inherit a mansion and convert it into a pension. Hilarity ensues!

In the post-La Liceale (1975) years things weren’t always easy for Gloria Guida. No doubt la Guida had the luxury of picking the roles she was interested in but the general quality of the sex comedies she appeared in was never exactly high to begin with. The Landlord (released domestically as L'affittacamere) is surprisingly tolerable and something of a minor cult hit despite being released at the tail end of Gloria’s turn as the iconic high school girl. Surrounded by some of the best comedic talent of the day, written and directed by some of the country’s most experienced specialists The Landlord might not be a masterwork of high comedy exactly, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. It shows extraordinary resilience not to revert to the kind of lowbrow slapstick shenanigans that Lino Banfi (with, or without, his trusty sidekick Alvaro Vitali) often indulges in whenever Gloria isn’t cavorting around in the nude. Even when Guida isn’t naked The Landlord is good fun. This was probably one of the better Guida offerings in those trying and challenging years before To Be Twenty (1978).

In the five-year span from 1974 to 1979 Gloria Guida had worked with some of the best and brightest in the commedia sexy all’Italiana industry. After Fernando Di Leo’s politically-charged To Be Twenty (1978), and having played just about every male wish fullfillment - and fantasy figure, perhaps it was time for Miss Teen Italy 1974 to branch out and spread her wings. Night Nurse (1979) was a semi-serious melodrama with the usual comedic interludes, and when glorious Gloria finally disrobed it was well worth the wait. The Landlord ramps up the situational – and slapstick comedy quotient and there’s at least one good chuckle-inducing moment where Gloria loses her dress and has to make a run across the street in only her translucent white lingerie (complete with stockings and garterbelts, for those who care for such details) in a scene probably “inspired” by the corresponding Nadia Marlowa scene in Sergio Grieco’s fumetti Argoman (1967) and something she would do in The High School Girl Repeating Class (1978) two years later. Fran Fullenwider’s sleepwalking episodes are memorable for all the wrong reasons, and at least she ended up working in Italy for a number of years after her roles in The Mutations (1974) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). If anything but that must have been a nice little opportunity to vacation while she was there. Lino Banfi is suprisingly tolerable (he doesn’t engage in his usual odious slapstick and the mugging is minimal), but it’s really Giuseppe Pambieri who’s responsible for most of the actual comedy. Vittorio Caprioli always elevates every scene he’s in and here it’s no different. The man was a genius. The Landlord is far from quintessential Italo comedy, but it’s far better than most base Gloria Guida swill.

Giorgia Mainardi (Gloria Guida) and her sister Angela (Fran Fullenwider) inherit a mansion in the countryside near Bologna after their aunt-contesa (Flora Carosello) passes away. Once the notary (Dino Emanuelli) and lawyer Mandelli (Giancarlo Dettori) get the necessary paperwork out of the way, the girls agree to convert the building into a pension and name it Pension Paraiso (or Pension Paradise). Angela designs the flyers and when Giorgia distributes flyers across town their new business venture attracts not only the attention of the printer (Aristide Caporale), but also that of judge Damiani (Adolfo Celi), the local arbiter of wisdom and moral values; as well as playboy jockey Anselmo Bresci (Giuseppe Pambieri) and professor Eduardo Settebeni (Luciano Salce). The pension is fully booked almost overnight, and quickly the rumor spreads that Pension Paraiso is not a pension but a casa d'appuntamento, if one is willing to part with 50,000 lire “for a night in paradise” with the hostess, so to speak.

This, of course, attracts the attention of Angela’s boyfriend Lillino Scalabrin (Lino Banfi). Lillino books himself a room, as does professor Eduardo Settebeni. Among the clientele are Pasquale Esposito Ramazzini (Enzo Cannavale) and the honorable judge Vincenzi (Vittorio Caprioli) who gladly pay a pretty penny to have Giorgia over. Also staying overnight are judge Damiani’s wife Rosaria (Marilda Donà) and Settebeni’s wife Adele Bazziconi (Giuliana Calandra), the latter hoping to catch her husband in flagrante delicto and the former to meet her lover Anselmo Bresci. Professor Settebeni has been prospecting the property with eye on converting it into a clinic once he retires. Hilarity ensues when everybody ends up between the sheets with each other, and Mandelli and Giorgia come up with a last-minute plan to salvage the planned sale. In the end Settebeni pays Giorgia 50 milioni lire for the building, allowing Angela and Lillino to marry, and the trio decides to move to a luxurious mansion in Puglia. There Giorgia devises a plan to turn the house into a pension now that she has a strategy.

Like in Night Nurse (1979) a few years later The Landlord director Mariano Laurenti is more concerned with the group dynamic and the interpersonal dramatics than showcasing Gloria Guida’s exposed form, although there’s enough of that too. It wasn’t even the first time Guida had worked with Mariano Laurenti. He would direct her in The High School Girl Repeating Class (1978) two years later, and would do so again in How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979), and The High School Girl, the Devil, and the Holy Water (1979). While she often could be found sharing the screen with buffoons Lino Banfi and Alvaro Vitali whose combined physical-situational comedy is best described as odious, Gloria was fortunate to share the screen with some of Italy’s greatest comedians, be they Vittorio Caprioli, Enzo Cannavale, or Nino Castelnuovo. In case of The Landlord it is Lando Buzzanca. Buzzanca made his debut as a Jewish slave in William Wyler’s big budget peplum epic Ben-Hur (1959), and started to specialize in comedy as early as 1961. He has shared the screen with just about every major and minor Eurocult queen imaginable. Buzzance and Guida shared the screen together just the year before in The Mammon Cat (1975). Fran Fullenwider is mostly remembered around these parts for her small role in The Mutations (1974). What can be said about Giuseppe Pambieri? Some guys have all the luck. He crossed paths with Gloria (and with a pre-Cicciolina Ilona Staller) earlier in La Liceale (1975), with Edwige Fenech in Confessions of a Lady Cop (1976), and with Chai Lee in Yellow Emanuelle (1976) (also with Staller). Vittorio Caprioli was in To Be Twenty (1978) with Guida and Lilli Carati.

By 1979 Gloria Guida was probably in a different headspace, she had been making a living taking her clothes off for about 5 years, and her spreads in Playboy, Playmen, and Skorpio showcased her to those who never caught any of her many comedies. The long and short of it was that anything after would be fairly redundant now that she had shown all in print magazines across the world. She had traveled to Mexico to work with René Cardona Jr. on The Bermuda Triangle (1978) (the sole horror entry in Guida’s filmography). Guida had a brush with relevance with Fernando Di Leo’s brilliant satire To Be Twenty (1978) most of her post-1978 oeuvre gravitates towards slightly more serious or darker toned material. As limited an actress as she was it’s puzzling that Guida never became involved in the giallo (and, by extent, horror) genre like so many of her comedy contemporaries did. In truth by 1978 Gloria was no longer believable as la liceale, and the world was forever denied a movie with her as a l’insegnante. It was evident that Gloria was winding down from acting and two years away from meeting her future-husband Johnny Dorelli. A year later she woud retire from acting and shift focus on her personal life and singing career. The Landlord is the last Guida comedy worth seeing as it sets its sights slightly higher than usual.

Plot: dopey industrialist must procure a male heir and hires a maid. Hilarity ensues!

The Mammon Cat (or Il Gatto Mammone, released in Spain as the more descriptive El Impotente Seductor, which basically spoils the entire plot) was released during the marquee year that was 1975, probably the busiest year for everybody’s favorite commedia sexy all’Italiana Lolita. That year la Guida had no less than five (!!) other movies out and about in cineplexes, domestic and abroad. Whether it was Blue Jeans (1975), that beloved valentine to glorious Gloria’s world-famous derrière, the light-hearted fun of La Liceale (1975), or the melodrama of The Novice (1975), That Malicious Age (1975), or So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… (1975) Miss Teen Italy 1974 had something for everybody. In a year awash with more naked Gloria Guida than anybody could possiby ask for The Mammon Cat is a funny enough romp with a decent amount of Gloria in the buff and enough slapstick shenanigans for everybody else.

Nando Cicero was one of those directors who – after the obligatory spaghetti westerns, Eurospy romps, and peplum – specialized almost exclusively in commedia sexy all'Italiana. In that capacity he got to work with some of the finest leading ladies of the day, including but not limited to, Michela Miti, Carmen Russo, Helga Liné, Cristina Galbó, Marisa Mell, and Erika Blanc. Cicero is mostly remembered for The School Teacher (1975), The Lady Medic (1976), and the two-part Doctor Eva Marini saga (1977-1978) – all with Edwige Fenech, whenever she wasn’t working with Sergio and Luciano Martino, as well as L'assistente sociale tutto pepe (1981) with a post-StarCrash (1978) Nadia Cassini. Cicero closed the gates on Gloria Guida’s famous La Liceale series with his anthology The High School Girl, the Devil, and the Holy Water (1979). The Mammon Cat was that other instance he worked with Miss Teen Italy 1974 and just like with all her other melodramas that year Gloria Guida appears only in a supporting role.

Sicilian pasta factory owner Lollo Mascalucia (Lando Buzzanca) has been happily married for many years. All that time he insisted to the town priest (Franco Giacobini), the doctor (Umberto Spadaro), and the local pharmacist (Empedocle Buzzanca) that offspring is about the last thing on his mind. His loving wife Rosalia (Rossana Podestà) is apparently unable to conceive and to make matter worse her high-strung, geriatric mother (Grazia Di Marzà) is living with them. That’s not all. Lollo’s haunted by hallucinations during the day (and nightmares at night) about the fiery collision that killed his father and the remainder of his family. One day he’s asked to produce a male heir who’s to inherit his modest business empire. The couple decide that a surrogate mother is the way to go, and Lollo embarks on a quest to find a suitable candidate. A casual misunderstanding leads him into the grubby hands of an aging and very fertile (but hugely unattractive) widow (Sofia Lusy, as Sophia Lucy). Lollo is able to talk himself out of a very embarrassing predicament and escapes with his dignity intact.

At the local orphanage Lollo catches a glimpse of young Marietta (Gloria Guida). He arranges with Mother Superior (Adriana Facchetti) and the nun (Ermelinda De Felice) for her to start working as their maid with an eye on officially adopting her. Marietta is over the moon with her sudden change of fortune. She soon moves into the Mascalucia casa signorile and lovingly refers to Lollo as “papà”. Finally Lollo is able to seduce young Marietta and before long he ends up between the sheets with her. Time passes and after systematically trying (up to six times a day) the obviously healthy and fertile Marietta is unable to conceive too. Dismayed at the prospect of not being able to produce a male heir Lollo learns that he’s in fact impotent. Rosalia offers to give him a heir with the help of gypsy Zingaro (Tiberio Murgia), who she had an eye on. At long last Mascalucia will get his long-desired heir, but probably not in the way he imagined.

As can be surmised from the summary The Mammon Cat is not really a Gloria Guida vehicle. No, it’s a Lando Buzzanca comedy that happens to have Guida in a supporting role. Glorious Gloria is only billed third (after screen veterans Buzzanca and Podestà) but that doesn’t mean that Nando Cicero doesn’t get the most out of her relatively minor part. Since nobody subjects themselves to these things voluntarily - and you couldn’t make a graver mistake than taking these things seriously – the reason why any of these features have attained any sort of cinematic longevity is not the writing (which isn’t too shabby for once either, but that’s besides the point) but the promise of a good dose of naked Gloria Guida shenanigans. And la Guida does get naked, only you’ll have to be patient to get to the good stuff. Just like in La Liceale (1975), and So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… (1975) before and That Malicious Age (1975) Gloria can be seen soaping herself up in an extended foamy shower scene that solely seems to exist to showcase her world-famous and much beloved ass. Of course that shapely ass would get its own feature with the very lyrical and poetic Blue Jeans (1975). Also worth mentioning is that peplum and spaghetti western pillar Rossana Podestà, a ripe 41 here, looks quite fetching. Dagmar Lassander, ten years her junior, looked far worse for wear in the scathing melodrama So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… (1975). Lando Buzzanca plays the stereotypical self-absorbed Italian greaseball that so richly deserves to be ridiculed for his virulent machismo and, in fact, very thoroughly is. On the other hand Lando’s also allowed to play his usual dopey self – and is pretty harmless as such.

And what exactly is the Il Gatto Mammone, or The Mammon Cat of the title, you wonder? Well, for starters it’s a popular figure in Italian (and wider Mediterranean) folklore and superstition. The gist of the parable of the Mammon Cat (which we won’t detail here) is to keep children (and elderly) sufficiently scared so that they won’t leave their familiar and safe environs, and that jealously and envy seldom, if ever, lead to anything good. The Mammon Cat is referenced in literature from Marco Polo, Goethe, and even the Arthurian legends. It features prominently in the works from Giovanni Francesco Straparola, Vittorio Imbriani, and Gherardo Nerucci – and the folkloric tale still lives on to this day in the regions of Sardinia, Puglia, and Valdichiana. As for the Mammon Cat of our current subject, that appears to be one of jealousy and envy, as well as the proverbial stray cat that Gloria Guida plays. Not that she ends up scratching anyone. Well, she does scratch Lando Buzzanca’s itch and he does ends up learning a valuable life lesson while at it. Then there’s also the Vulgate Bible and New Testament entity Mammon that promises wealth and that’s typically associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. In that sense The Mammon Cat is almost like Disney, but with far more nudity, Italian machismo and decent amount of comedic incestual misunderstandings. And what is more Italian than the adulation and pursuit of ass? Nothing, that's what.

Gloria Guida was at her best when she could play off actors with far more (comedic) talent than her. Having shared the screen with Nino Castelnuovo, Giuseppe Pambieri, Mario Carotenuto, and Enzo Cannavale, it was just a matter of time before la Guida would be paired up with comedy royalties as Lando Buzzanca and Vittorio Caprioli. After having shared the screen with Caprioli in To Be Twenty (1978) there was no way Gloria (nor Lili Carati for that matter) was ever going to top Fernando di Leo’s satirical masterpiece.

Guida would persevere with more futile commedia sexy’all Italiana before marrying showman Johnny Dorelli in 1981 and focusing on her nascent singing career. Thankfully la Guida never had to lower herself to sexploitation dreck the way Solveig Andersson and Christina Lindberg had to back in Sweden. On the other hand, it begs the question why Gloria never had her own giallo or was picked up in the horror genre. Not that she was even remotely on the same level as Barbara Bouchet or Nieves Navarro, but la Guida often found herself engaging in the kind of low effort swill that she was too good for. Then there’s the fact that she was typecast almost immediately and never really escaped the looming shadow of her famous schoolgirl character. Not that glorious Gloria ever really faded in relevance or popularity (or at least not in her native Italy, internationally might be another discussion) but as Italy’s prime lolita she deserved better than to be forever cast as the empty headed sex-crazed bimbo.