PRIMO TANGO A ROMA – STORIA D’ AMORE E D’ ALCHIMIA

In twelfth-center Rome a knight of the banished Templar Order finds refuge with his page, first in the Palazzo Colonna and then in the Palazzo Orsini. Word of the men’s amorous feats with the women of the two noble families quickly spreads, and they become famous as the inventors of an aphrodisiac elixir.

This is a “decamerotici” movie, a period Italian Sex Comedy inspired by the classic Boccaccio work “The Decameron”. Rather than being a collection of short tales like a lot of the other “decamerotici”, this has one central story focusing on a lovable Renaidssance-era rogue and his dimwitted assistant who have invented a powerful aphrodisiac that allows the rogue to cuckold all the local noblemen (as well as deflower at least one of their daughters) while his assistant ruts around with their improbably sexy domestic help.

The raison d’etre of all these movies, of course, is to undress the female cast, which this movie does quite efficiently. The two leads are Rosalba Neri and Erika Blanc, two of the most famous exploitation actresses in Italy at the time. Both actresses more typically appeared in gialli, horror movies, or spaghetti westerns but they always brightened up whatever movies they appeared in, even borderline dreck like this. Regrettably, Neri and Blanc don’t have too many scenes together, but they both appear in more scenes than their clothes do, so it’s not a total loss.