The Eroticist

(1972)

The Eroticist is a political satire from Lucio Fulci. Originally titled All'onorevole piaciono le donne, or The Senator Likes Women, it is the story of an Italian senator who is a presidential hopeful, supported by the church.

The would-be president he has been groomed for his role from birth by a cardinal, and part of his training was regular instruction on the evils of women. During the election, newsreel footage surfaces which shows him pinching the bottom of a female head of state. It comes as a great surprise, as he had been thought to be gay. A priest decides to take two actions. First, he will blackmail him, and second, he will take him to a Dominican shrink and get him cured. Unfortunately, the Dominican lives in a convent, and after the senator leaves, supposedly cured, 21 of the 22 nuns confess that he ravished them. Rather than being cured, he is worse than ever. No longer content with grabbing clothed bottoms, he wants to do much more with naked ones. This is, of course, a potential disaster for his campaign.

Things go from bad to worse when the one nun he missed, Laura Antonelli, arrives to convince him to whip the evil out of her, after which she will whip the evil out of him.

They actually come up with a much better idea.

The government, the military and the police all come under the gun in what might be Fulci's best film, but the film fires its most devastating broadsides at the church. One of the cardinals, for instance, canonizes his enemies by murdering them, then turning them into plaster saints. In another scene, the cardinal is laying prostrate and praying when he is told that the senator is causing a scandal. He shouts "Christ."

Because this film takes several swings at nearly every Italian institution, it has been subjected to heavy censorship through the years. The new Severin release runs 1:49:31, whereas IMDb lists it as 1:36:00, making this the most complete version to date. It is in Italian with English subtitles, and includes a short subject about censorship in Italy, especially in relation to this film. Fans of Fulci and European cinema will want to add this edition to their library, not only because it is a worthy film from an noteworthy director, but also because it is fun, has great nudity and now comes in an excellent, (presumably) uncensored transfer.

• Highly recommended for those who appreciate this sort of material.

• IMDb readers say 5.8 with 80 votes.

Laura Antonelli shows breasts and buns. Eva Czemerys does full frontal and rear in a dream sequence. An unknown does full frontal as a statue, Anita Strindberg, as the French ambassador's wife, wears pasties and a g-string made of money, and the nuns all show their butts in a dream sequence.

 

Laura Antonelli

Eva Czemerys

Anita Strindberg

Unidentified nuns

Unidentified statue

 

 

The Comedy Wire

Comments in yellow...

The newest political war is over a scandal that may not even exist.  Columnist Robert Novak wrote that Hillary Clinton's agents are spreading the word to Democratic insiders that she has scandalous info about Barack Obama, but won't use it; the idea being to make Obama look vulnerable and Hillary look prudent.  Obama denounced it as the type of Clinton-era divisive politics that Americans want to move beyond.  The Clinton campaign shot back that they have no scandalous info on Obama and accused Novak of being a "Republican-leaning" columnist who ran the item to harm Hillary. 

*  The info is that Obama was seen in the company of a known philanderer...Bill Clinton. 


The American Family Association is up in arms after Newsweek reported that fewer hotel chains are putting Bibles in rooms and are replacing them with "intimacy kits."  These include such things as condoms in the mini-bar and "lovers' dice" with words such as "lick" and "kiss" on one cube and different body parts on the other.  Scottsdale, Arizona's Intercontinental Hotel even has a "One Night Stand" package, but they say it's just to let people "remain in the heart of the active art, shopping, dining and nightlife venues of Old Town Scottsdale" instead of going home.  An AFA spokesman said having this instead of a Bible in the rooms is like having the slogan, "Sleep with us.  Leave the values at home!"

*  What better way to get to know someone in a Biblical sense? 


An elderly woman in Nicosia, Cyprus, is on trial for illegal sorcery after she allegedly charged a man about $12,000 (US) to remove a curse that she claimed was causing problems for his relationship with his wife and mother-in-law.  He testified that her solution involved an egg, a spoon, a nail, some pubic hairs and his underwear.  He said, "She cracked the egg into my underpants." 

*  She did remove the curse of poverty from herself.

*  For $12,000, he could've just put out a contract on his mother-in-law. 

*  His wife and mother-in-law give him a lot of grief because they claim he can't be trusted with money.


A woman from Wuhan City, China, came into a hospital complaining of feeling weak, and doctors were astonished to discover she had only half a brain.  They said the missing half a brain seemed to be unrelated to any health problems. She'd graduated high school with good marks, remembers phone numbers and names, and lives a perfectly normal life.  Doctors said the left side of the brain controls language, yet she has only a right side and has no problem communicating.  

*  That must mean Bush has less than half.