I've become interested in Italian film company Pinko Films, not because of the implied Commie connection (just kidding) but because their output has recently started being released in America from good old Girlfriends Films for reasons that remain mysterious. "Secretary" is an older title that sounded interesting on paper but turned out to be a bust.
It bears a 2010 date on the packaging, but IMDb rightly traces it back to 2007. The synopsis is that of a Mafia story, with the head Don hiring beautiful Roberta to be his personal secretary -to scrupulously take down his memories of various crimes and exciting episodes in his life and then guard that diary with her life. Premise really makes no sense -such things are better kept locked up in one's head, like the specialized criminals we hear about who can keep detailed illegal financial transactions bottled up in their memory rather than recorded somewhere that might later prove incriminating.
He tells her a bunch of stories, but they're all about sex, and we see them illustrated in flashbacks. It's standard porn procedure, but director Francesco Fanelli never makes a connection between what a flashback is announced to be about and what actually is shown, and the crummy English dubbing doesn't help matters. For example, the Don will intone to Roberta that one brother is warring with another, but all we see is the guy humping some beautiful blonde.
It all adds up to a prime example of why some gentlemen prefer gonzo. When the story is all a fake and totally garbled, with just a string of sex scenes to watch, why not dispense with the phony set-ups and "acting/dialog" footage.
I liked the look of Earth mother Roberta, but the rest of the femme cast are lookalike blondes, very poor casting in terms of variety.
SPOILER:
Last straw, infuriating me for having wasted 2 hours on a real stinker, is a coda after all the sex dies down, in which Roberta has disappeared leaving a note behind indicating she's sold the diary for a grand sum to a publisher, and to hell with what consequences this might mean to the Don. Since she was the only likable character on screen (unless you're addicted to glamorized Mafia types) this tacked-on and arbitrary twist was nauseating.
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