Paprika: The Last Italian Whore (1995) User Reviews (4)

By the numbers remake: D'Amato imitating Tinto

[lor_ · 1 June 2011]

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.

D'Amato working hard to pay the bills

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 16 March 2023]

PAPRIKA is a good example of the kind of mindless trash that Joe D'Amato was putting out at the tail end of his career. In itself it's a pornographic rip-off of the Tinto Brass softcore movie PAPRIKA, but it takes away all of that film's nuance and political backdrop to replace it with one monotonous sex scene after another. The setting is an Italian brothel, where Erica Bella plays a high-class prostitute who shows up looking for work and certainly finds it. D'Amato must have directed about a hundred such movies at the end of his life and there's no art, eroticism or attempt at story or character here, just physical action.

A Wonderful Piece of Literature

[osloj · 10/10 · 21 September 2001]

Paprika is a wonderful tale of a girl who grows up in poverty and by sheer virtue of fortune, finally finds true love. The scenes recall some of the love stories of the 1930's and it is indeed filmed in the dark corridors of Italy. Paprika is wonderfully played by the new actress, I think this was her first appearance in Amato's films. She was also in "Midnight Obsession" reprising her European feminist role. Be sure to get a look at all the great costumes done by Vitorio Constanci who worked with such great names as Fellini, Visconti, Rosellini, and DeSica, designing fabulous period pieces before cutting off his finger in a sewing accident and thereby destroying his prosperous career. This is a film that will leave you in tears it is so memorable.

# 54 : C'era Una Volta Il... Bordello

[lamegabyte · 10/10 · 14 November 2015]

At last, a good hard-on movie with Erika and directed by d'Amato, so it's not a surprise to this success as the pair would be involved in the paramount « Magic Eros » (see my review). This one is very similar to the other (bad) movie with the same title as my summary because it's about the activity of an Italian bordello at the start of the XXth century ! The big differences are that this one is not closing on the contrary and that Erika has really a plenty of scenes. So except that, the 2 movies are really alike : Erika takes her client to her blue bedroom and have sex in a « choreography » very precise (almost the same sequences of positions…). Maybe there isn't much originality but i found the cinematography really beautiful : it's not clear, it's a bit blue, so it's looks like old stuff indeed ! In addition, the wardrobe is historical too so you can see that Erika is still much more beautiful when dressed ! In the same time, she shows really exciting lingerie here so you can understand why Erika achieves to be my most watched muse so far (with 8 movies), followed closely by #Jana Cova (7 movies) and a tie between #Olivia del Rio and Lola Reve (5 movies) !