Great minds think alike, so it's no surprise to have Joe D'Amato ripping off Tinto Brass with PAPRIKA, a XXX version made just four years after the maestro's near classic effort.
Unfortunately this is mere imitation, with D'Amato bringing very little to the table. When our heroine Rose (the beautiful Erica Bella) arrives in the 1920s to work in Madam Giselle's bordello, Giselle rechristens her "Anal Paprika" -setting the tone and content for the next 90 minutes.
I was much taken with Deborah Caprioglio, the original Brass choice as Paprika, an amazing young actress who after a liaison with Klaus Kinski failed to get her career in order. As much as Bella decorates many a D'Amato porno film, she cannot deliver the freshness and liveliness of Deborah.
Instead she pretty much takes it in the rear, as well as a lot of "between the breasts" action. The previous IMDb-er made a big thing about the costume design (and designer), but it is uncredited on the print used for the American DVD and definitely nothing to write home about.
Among the highlights, several of which are familiar from the Brass version, is the inevitable Giselle/Rose lesbian scene; an incest scene after an uncle is shocked to find his niece working in the brothel, and a troilism segment that turns into an orgy. Brass's humorous and tasteless vignettes involving the Madam's strap-on as well as a corpulent customer with a huge dick are oddly absent from this hardcore version, even though they would play better in explicit fashion.
Ending is particularly poor, as Paprika goes off with a big lunk, talking dirty as "FIN" is arbitrarily superimposed on the screen. Brass, taking the basic FANNY HILL material, went to great pains to establish an historical context about the repressive era (that closed the brothels) with the coming of Fascism, but D'Amato is low on content.
