In this light-hearted - and very bare-breasted - comedy playing out in Montecatini Terme, Florence, Italy, medical doctor Elia Bonvicini (Dagmar Lassander) takes on the role as town medic in the little Tuscan town, after the demise of the old town doctor.
Ms. Bonvinci is an uninhibited and modern-minded woman. She is temporarily away and lives at the home of the town's mayor Gedeone (Maurizio Arena), a Christian Democrat politician and an industrial manufacturer of apparel.
She very soon finds herself the centre of attention, not only from the mayor but also from his son Roberto (Gianluigi Chirizzi). Thus, Bonvinci has to bear the cross, so to speak, of the little inhibited and conservative towns frustrations, usually - but not always - in a typically movie-like fashion as the focal point of the collective illness of the town's males: sexual frustration.
Rosalba (Stella Carnacina), Gideon's second daughter, is hindered by her father in her relationship with a courier driver due to his political affiliation with the Italian Communist Party, being a son of a left-wing extremist terrorist.
Elijah takes an interest in Rosalba's condition and, together with parish priest Don Firmino (Ghigo Masino), tries to convince the mayor to accept his daughter's relationship.
We are presented with snippets of Italian realities affecting the minds and lives of the people of the time: The politics of the Catholic Church, the fear of the Communist Red Brigade bombings, kidnapping and killings, the dubious morale of officials and politicians, including the first billed rather unsympathetic moralist and adulterer, the mayor Gideone himself.
These snippets of commentary on social realities do, however, fragment the story. Much more so than the various women frequently opening their blouses to display their breasts, which happens very often in the first half of the movie. Yes: women only; the men don't expose even their torsos. But this was in 1976, after all.
On the other hand, this whole oeuvre is very inspired by Italian Commedia dell'arte, however probably never improvised: For example, there is the local rascal gang of boys committing various pranks on people, commenting the story by singing rude songs accompanying their pranks, making the film verge on the brink of a musical, without solo numbers, Greek and Italian style.
The jokes themselves vary in quality from low-brow toilet humour to quite intelligent satire of greater finesse.
Another reviewer on this site ridicules the Tuscan accent used by many characters, which they feel may be the only funny thing in this movie to laugh at, at least for Italians.
There is nothing ridiculous about the Tuscan accent: instead, this movie gives a rare opportunity to watch a comedy where this accent has been "allowed" in a film, by an Italian film studio. It also adds to the humour of the movie, since the writer/director has taken the accent and locally unique modes of expression into account when writing funny dialogue - understandably lost in the translation to other languages.
On a more intellectual meta-level, there is a cultural element to having made this mostly superficial comedy that is quite interesting. A well-known quote states:
"The Tuscan is the most alien to holding speeches, the most alien, that is, to putting himself in a comedy, believed only half-heartedly and conducted for amusement or to help himself live. He never gives you, as in other parts of Italy, the fairy tale, the myth, the rhetoric of himself; on the contrary, he tends to do the opposite, to dismantle all rhetoric around himself, with words, and even more: with silence."
Welcome to Tuscany, anno 1976.
Ms. Bonvinci is an uninhibited and modern-minded woman. She is temporarily away and lives at the home of the town's mayor Gedeone (Maurizio Arena), a Christian Democrat politician and an industrial manufacturer of apparel.
She very soon finds herself the centre of attention, not only from the mayor but also from his son Roberto (Gianluigi Chirizzi). Thus, Bonvinci has to bear the cross, so to speak, of the little inhibited and conservative towns frustrations, usually - but not always - in a typically movie-like fashion as the focal point of the collective illness of the town's males: sexual frustration.
Rosalba (Stella Carnacina), Gideon's second daughter, is hindered by her father in her relationship with a courier driver due to his political affiliation with the Italian Communist Party, being a son of a left-wing extremist terrorist.
Elijah takes an interest in Rosalba's condition and, together with parish priest Don Firmino (Ghigo Masino), tries to convince the mayor to accept his daughter's relationship.
We are presented with snippets of Italian realities affecting the minds and lives of the people of the time: The politics of the Catholic Church, the fear of the Communist Red Brigade bombings, kidnapping and killings, the dubious morale of officials and politicians, including the first billed rather unsympathetic moralist and adulterer, the mayor Gideone himself.
These snippets of commentary on social realities do, however, fragment the story. Much more so than the various women frequently opening their blouses to display their breasts, which happens very often in the first half of the movie. Yes: women only; the men don't expose even their torsos. But this was in 1976, after all.
On the other hand, this whole oeuvre is very inspired by Italian Commedia dell'arte, however probably never improvised: For example, there is the local rascal gang of boys committing various pranks on people, commenting the story by singing rude songs accompanying their pranks, making the film verge on the brink of a musical, without solo numbers, Greek and Italian style.
The jokes themselves vary in quality from low-brow toilet humour to quite intelligent satire of greater finesse.
Another reviewer on this site ridicules the Tuscan accent used by many characters, which they feel may be the only funny thing in this movie to laugh at, at least for Italians.
There is nothing ridiculous about the Tuscan accent: instead, this movie gives a rare opportunity to watch a comedy where this accent has been "allowed" in a film, by an Italian film studio. It also adds to the humour of the movie, since the writer/director has taken the accent and locally unique modes of expression into account when writing funny dialogue - understandably lost in the translation to other languages.
On a more intellectual meta-level, there is a cultural element to having made this mostly superficial comedy that is quite interesting. A well-known quote states:
"The Tuscan is the most alien to holding speeches, the most alien, that is, to putting himself in a comedy, believed only half-heartedly and conducted for amusement or to help himself live. He never gives you, as in other parts of Italy, the fairy tale, the myth, the rhetoric of himself; on the contrary, he tends to do the opposite, to dismantle all rhetoric around himself, with words, and even more: with silence."
Welcome to Tuscany, anno 1976.
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