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Category: Renzo Marignano

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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.

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Plot: where Loredana goes, everybody else follows...

Every country has its softcore sex goddess. Holland had Nada van Nie, Germany had the delectable trio of Olivia Pascal, Ursula Buchfellner, and Betty Vergés; Sweden had Christina Lindberg, Solveig Andersson, and Leena Skoog; Denmark had Birte Tove, and in Spain there were Andrea Albani, Sara Mora, and Eva Lyberten. Italy had plenty of Lolitas running around, but for the purview of this review we’ll focus on one in particular: Gloria Guida, Miss Teen Italy 1974. In some circles she’s considered the Italian Marilyn Monroe, and to the rest of the world she’s Italy’s most famous piece of ass (next to Femi Benussi, probably). In 1975 director Michele Massimo Tarantini would create her most enduring character, La Liceale (or The High School Girl, released in North America as The Teasers). La Guida had been dabbling in comedy for a good year by that point, but she hadn’t yet scored a genuine hit. The High School Girl would change all that and launch her to stratospheric heights of success, both domestic and abroad. Suddenly Gloria was not just Italy’s hottest comedy star, but a full-blown international superstar and sex symbol. The world was at Gloria’s feet. For the casual fan there are but two mandatory Gloria Guida romps. Of those two, The High School Girl is the probably the best remembered…

In 1975 la Guida’s conquest of the commedia sexy all’Italiana had barely begun and she already had scored her first major hit. Afer playing a lovably naive teen girl in Silvio Amadio’s The Minor (1974) and Mario Imperoli’s Monika (1974) Gloria suddenly found herself the most in-demand starlet on the domestic comedy scene. At a breakneck pace she appeared in The Novice (1975), Sins Of Youth (1975), The Mammon Cat (1975), That Malicious Age (1975), and Blue Jeans (1975). In her first outing as the school girl la Guida is paired with consummate professionals Mario Carotenuto, Enzo Cannavale, and Giuseppe Pambieri, German soft sex star Alena Penz, Angela Doria, a pre-La Cicciolina Ilona Staller, and perennial buffoon Alvaro Vitali (for once not in tandem with his frequent partner in crime Lino Banfi). Interestingly, sequels only appeared following Gloria’s second career peak with Fernando Di Leo’s scathing satire To Be Twenty (1978). In quick succession The High School Girl in the Class of Repeaters (1978), The High School Girl Seduces the Teachers (1979), and the three-part anthology The High School Girl, the Devil, and the Holy Water (1979) all starring la Guida followed, transforming it into a loose series. Only Marino Girolami’s non-canonical The High School Girl at the Beach with Dad’s Friend (1980) had Sabrina Siani taking over the part from glorious Gloria. Sadly, la Guida retired before a commedia with her as l’insegnante could be produced.

Michele Massimo Tarantini was one of the specialists of the commedia sexy all’Italiana genre. Together with Sergio Martino, Fernando Di Leo, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Marino Girolami and Mario Imperoli he was responsible for some of the genre’s most defining works. He had worked as production secretary, set designer, editor, and assistant director under Sergio Martino, Giuliano Carnimeo, Nando Cicero, and Mariano Laurenti. Tarantini rose to fame with his giallo Seven Hours of Violence (1973) but would find his first commercial success with The High School Girl instead. He helmed a few sequels to Nando Cicero’s The School Teacher (1975) with Edwige Fenech. Fenech would play the raunchy substitute teacher in The School Teacher in the House (1978) and The Schoolteacher Goes to Boys' High (1978) from Mariano Laurenti. After casting Gloria Guida as la liceale he chose her fellow Lolita Lilli Carati for the role as l’insegnante in School Days (1976). Tarantini would cast Fenech in Confessions of a Lady Cop (1976) and its two sequels A Policewoman on the Porno Squad (1979) and A Policewoman in New York (1979). In 1983 Tarantini moved to Brazil and continued his career there. During that time he helmed, among others, The Sword of the Barbarians (1982), the women-in-prison flick Women in Fury (1984), the Cannibal Ferox (1981) cash-in Massacre In Dinosaur Valley (1985), as well as the Cirio H. Santiago styled jungle actioner The Hard Way… The Only Way (1989), often under his Anglo-Saxon alias Michael E. Lemick. Unlike his colleague Marino Girolami, Taranti was versatile enough to be tolerable in non-comedic genres too – which isn’t always a given with directors specializing in comedy.

Loredana D'Amico (Gloria Guida) is stunningly beautiful and incredibly restless, as a result her academic performance is mediocre because she’s bored. To kill the time (and her boredom) Loredana takes great fun in seducing faculty members as a pastime, to help her friends whenever they are in a bind, or whenever her grades need a boost. She doesn’t understand her bored housewife mother Elvira (Gisella Sofio) or her absentee businessman father Comm. D'Amico (Mario Carotenuto) for that matter, and wishes nothing but that they would be strict with her. Her mother is in a tryst with another man and her father has a habit of engaging in office affairs, usually with his young secretary (Alena Penz). Bored in art class one day Loredana looks how far she can go in teasing middle-aged Professor Mancinelli (Renzo Marignano) while he explains the finer anatomical points of the famed Aphrodite of Knidos statue. Mancinelli, profusely sweating in acute ecstasy, is reduced to a madly babbling husk and has to be carted off, supposedly in need of immediate medical attention. The dean brings in substitute teacher Professor Gianni Guidi (Gianfranco D'Angelo), a wild-haired caricature of an educator prone to neurosis and nervous tics, to take over Mancinelli’s scheduled classes. Before long Loredana has set her sights on him too.

Currently Loredana is dating American exchange student Billy (Rodolfo Bigotti), but she isn’t sure whether he loves her for the right reasons. Her classmate Petruccio Sciacca (Alvaro Vitali) has a thing for her too. He will go through great lengths to paint her portrait, preferably in the nude. As such Petruccio is too preoccupied (and oblivious) to the obvious in front of him: studious blonde good girl (and resident tomboy) Lucia (Angela Doria) has been sweet on him for as long as they’ve shared classes, and she’s very willing take her clothes off if he would only ask her. Loredana’s roommate Monica (Ilona Staller) moonlights as an escort for extra money, and will try to seduce her into a sapphic liaison whenever the opportunity arises. Loredana and Billy kill time by engaging in an especially passionate heavy petting session in the abandoned biology classroom, scaring the living daylights out of the janitor (Ennio Colaianni).

Things start to look up when Loredana meets strapping blonde hunk of a man, Marco Salvi (Giuseppe Pambieri) and is immediately smitten. The two engage in a brief, steamy affair and only after she learns that Salvi is an engineer from Turin, and one of her father’s young business associates. One day sharing a car Loredana’s panties somehow end up in Professor Guidi’s briefcase with all the expected results. Guidi is assaulted by Billy and his gang of motorcycle-riding goons, who don’t take kind to the professor being on the receiving end of attention of their leader’s sometime girlfriend, but Guidi valiantly defends himself to great success with chop sockey kung fu moves. A misunderstanding concerning a writ leaves her parents thinking that their 17-year-old daughter has disappeared. Loredana’s affair with Marco, brief and passionate as it was, serves as a catalyst to improve their home situation as her mom and dad reconciliate their marital differences and prioritize each other over their jilted lovers.

If The High School Girl is testament to anything, it’s that Tarantini knew exactly what everybody was there for: to see Gloria Guida in the buff as often and early as humanly possible. Suffice to say, it delivers exactly what it promises, and does so in spades. Plus, it has the added bonus of being not half-bad on its own. It’s as if the stars aligned and every element fell perfectly in place. Credits should probably go to director of photography Giancarlo Ferrando who photographs glorious Gloria beautifully from whatever flattering angle at his disposal. In the years following The High School Girl Ferrando went on to lens everything from Mountain Of the Cannibal God (1978), the Edwige Fenech-Barbara Bouchet romp Wife On Vacation… Lover in the City (1980), Cream Puffs (1981), and 2019 - After the Fall Of New York (1983) to low-budget cannon fodder as Hands Of Steel (1986) and Alfonso Brescia’s Filipino-Dominican Republic trash action classic Cross Mission (1988). That The High School Girl works so well as it does is in no small part thanks to writers Francesco Milizia and Marino Onorati, both of whom were genre specialists. The High School Girl is, above all else, a paean, a valentine to everybody’s favorite Lolita. There were starlets before Guida and there were after, but none quite set the screen alight the way she did. While not as knee-slappingly funny or outright comedic as some of the more stereotypical Italian comedies of the day The High School Girl is, surprisingly, bereft of the usual melodrama and tragedy rife in Guida’s body of work. Sometimes things just work.

By the tall end of 1979 – after having scored two monster hits with The High School Girl and To Be Twenty (1978) – Gloria, at the ripe age of 24, realized that it was high time to retire the beloved character as she grew increasingly unbelievable in the role that made her a superstar. She had posed for Playboy in April 1977 and Playmen in June 1976, May 1978, and November 1979 and all signs were pointing towards her acting career winding down. Like so many of her ilk she took to singing. She was two years away from meeting her future-husband Johnny Dorelli and a year after that she would retire completely. It’s pretty amazing how much of a phenomenon Gloria Guida was able to become despite, or in spite of, only being active for a good five years. Of all the things Gloria lend her name and figure to The High School Girl is probably the only to endure the way that it did. Not even To Be Twenty (1978) (arguably the better and more subtextual of the two) has enjoyed that kind of longevity. And the fact that glorious Gloria was able to carve out such a respectable career for herself probably paved the way for actresses like Sabrina Siani, Luciana Ottaviani, and the like – whose primary sellingpoint were their good looks and willingness to shed clothes when required. It’s a bit strong to call Gloria Guida the Barbara Steele of Italian comedy, but she came damn close….