Cult and, in many ways, talented movie-maker Aristide Massacesi aka Joe D' Amato, never felt really comfortable with comedy, during his prolific career. He was a great cinematographer and a skilled and clever director for an audience looking for "strong emotions". Movies with sex, guts and violence were his "bread 'n' butter" and he (almost) always delivered. As a matter of fact, comedy is one of the most difficult genres and demands a sophisticated sense of humor and a sensibility he probably never had. For "Il ginecologo della mutua" aka "The ladies's doctor", he had available (for a pleasant change), what appears to be at least a decent budget, a more than usual clever script by long-time collaborator Fiorenzo Carpi, a cast of strong and skilled veteran actors like Renzo Montagnani, Mario Carotenuto, Massimo Serato, Tony Ucci and Italian stage and movie legend Aldo Fabrizi, as well as an outstanding group of pretty and absolutely not inhibited ladies, lead by a gorgeous Paola Senatore, all of them enthusiastically willing to show all their "treasures". So, probably aware of his limitations, he apparently decided to let his talented actors do what they could do best: means acting, restraining himself to a "soft touch" direction, only injecting, from time to time, some hearty doses of raunchiness and sleaze, as his personal trademark. If what I speculate is true, I think this was a very wise decision and, as a result, we got a far more entertaining Sex-Comedy, then the majority of the Xeroxed farces, which the Euro audience was bombarded with, during the 70's and early 80's. Renzo Montagnani is great as Dr. Giovannaldi, an obscure and modest, but "not so innocent" gynecologist, employed by the national health system, which knows how to properly scam this institution. His wife is lesbian; they only share conveniently an apartment (in those years, the majority of homosexuals stayed still comfortably in the closet...) and they have completely independent lives. He accepts this odd arrangement, simply because she is the daughter of an established professor, which may help his career. One day however, he gets the opportunity of his life-time: he is offered to take over, temporarily, the posh practice of an established colleague, on the run for tax troubles. He obviously accepts. In this way, he can continue to seduce his own patients and also succeeds in satisfying "big time" his new high-class clients, becoming rapidly popular and requested. He finally manages in becoming a partner in a new luxury clinic, working his way to the top, by cheating, lying and having torrid sex with every (beautiful and influential) woman available. Excellent (as usual) Aldo Fabrizi, as the exploitative father in law of the oversexed ladies's doctor, mainly concerned in finding a safe way to transfer to Switzerland the money he makes. In a couple of scenes, which are definitely a blast, he just about "steals" the movie. Among the women, there are several familiar faces (and bodies) of that period, such as Daniela Doria, Dirce Funari, Loretta Persichetti, Lorraine de Selle, caught in various stages of undressing and nakedness and, the more funny than sexy, Isabella Biagini. In a very small part with only a couple of short scenes, we can also appreciate a very young and very, very pretty Marina Hedman, freshly arrived from native Sweden to conquer the Italian movie industry, perhaps in one of her first screen appearances. She only smiles here, stutters a few lines with a horrible Teutonic accent, wakes her "booty" a couple of times and, amazingly,... doesn't "show any skin" at all! Only a few months later, during the same year, she performs the first Italian mainstream-movie hard-core sequence in Massacesi's "Emanuelle in America", breaking the ice for an all new explicit trend and becoming, during the 80's and '90's, as Marina Frajese (in the meantime she had married famous journalist/anchor-man Paolo Frajese, who quickly divorced her, as soon as he realized, that he was sharing, at least visually, his wife's most private parts with several hundred million men around the world...) and later as Marina Lotar, one of the most popular Porn Queens of all times. In 2000, great Robert Altman, landed a (perhaps unintentional) remake of this cult classic "Dr. T and the women", starring a somehow lame Richard Gere in the title-role. In spite of being an Altman admirer, I think this is just another polished Hollywood product, with far less "punch" and definitely not as entertaining as his raunchy predecessor. Just leave Sex-Comedies to the Italians....It's just a fact: they were and still are the best in this department! I think this is a must for Italian Sex-Comedy fans and rightfully deserves its Cult status and if you liked it, don't miss Pasquale Festa Campanile '71 "Il merlo maschio" starring a young and gorgeous Laura Antonelli and '79 "Il corpo della ragassa" starring "my darling" Lilli Carati. I give this one a 7 out of 10.
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lazarillo22 January 2011The plot of this is a little hard to follow even with English subtitles. A gynecologist (Renzo Montagni) with a low-rent practice gets an opportunity to take over a much more high-end practice from a friend of his father's after the friend has to flee because he owes money to the mob. The gynecologist has a ridiculous amount of sex at both his original practice and his new practice both with his ridiculous horny female patients and his shapely secretary (Paola Senatore).
Although not the most attractive guy in the world (he was better looking than Lino Banfi or Alvaro Vitali at least), Montagnini kind of got stereotyped in these stud roles where he happily plows through any number of attractive and available women. This is more of the same. Montagnini is always pretty likable, but I find the idea of a gynecologist having sex with his patients a little queasy. This is a good role for Senatore. She was an OK actress with an incredible body, but heroin addiction eventually led her into appearing in an XXX porn film (she survived, but her career really didn't). The supporting cast includes Marina Hedman, who was pretty much always an XXX actress (Italy's first perhaps), but she also appeared in some softcore sex comedy roles like this. There's also Loretta Perischetti, who I've seen in a few things, and Daniel Doria, who later became Lucio Fulci's "go-to girl" in several horror movies (or more like his "take-her-clothes-off-and-get-killed-girl" since he often carved her up in such a nasty fashion in his movies, you'd think he had something against her personally).
Perhaps, the real "star" here though is cinematographer-turned-cult-director Aristide Macassessi,better known as Joe D'Amato. This is one of his few Italian sex comedies, and it's obvious this genre isn't his forte. Like most Italian sex comedies, this is not for everyone perhaps,but Joe D'Amato fans might like it -
BandSAboutMovies17 December 2021Beyond his two decameron films, Joe D'Amato also made this commedia sexy all'italiana about a gynecologist who - despite his average looks - has a line of women who can't wait for him to see to them. Most of the Italian sex comedies I've seen get lost in translation and feel dated - which makes sense, as they were made in the mid 70s in a foreign country - but this one actually made me laugh.
Dr. Giovanardi (Renzo Montagnani, When Women Had Tails, When Women Lost Their Tails) is brought in by Doctor Lo Bianco who is hiding out from his debts on an island. A libertine married to a lesbian - how progressive for 1977 - he gets set up by his secretary Pamela (Paola Senatore, Like Rabid Dogs, Ricco the Mean Machine) to put out for a wide array of clients, giving some the babies they want and others the exact type of lovemaking they adore, including one client who wants violent aardvarking so badly that she punches our hero right in the face as hard as she can, knocking him across the room.
Keep an eye out for Daniela Doria (who got stabbed through the throat in The House by the Cemetery and also is in The New York Ripper, The Black Cat and City of the Living Dead), Loretta Persichetti (Salon Kitty, Nine Guests for a Crime), adult actress Marina Hedman and Lorraine De Selle (Cannibal Ferox, Gloria in House on the Edge of the Park, the warden in Violence in a Women's Prison, Women's Prison Massacre and more).
The most amusing thing is that Montagnani played the same role as an irresistible male several times despite appearing in no way like a man who should be doing this.