Background: This is another Italian movie from the '70s, like Depths Of Netflix favorite, Nude For Satan. Though that was in no way a good movie, I did admire its attempts at moodiness. It failed miserably, mind you, but it tried. That movie was a damn mess of slow pacing, boring characters and a Gothic Liberace. Why in the world would I want to go back to the well of obscure italian movies? Well, this one was written by Pier Paolo Pasolini. He somehow managed to direct an adaptation of 120 Days Of Sodom. Yes, that 120 Days Of Sodom. The Marquis De Sade's 120 Days Of Sodom. Add in the fact that he also directed an adaptation of 1,001 Arabian Nights, and a saucy version of The Canturbury Tales (what?) and that shows that this man clearly has some bawdy tales in his back pocket. You probably don't want to reach into that pocket though. So let's enjoy some Bawdy Tales.
Plot: This movie sets its tone early with two guys in silly hats talking about crimes they've committed while taking a shit. This, I guess, is a joke. If it is, it's one of the more tasteful ones in the movie. These guys are the framing device for the rest of the movie. These two tell stories back and forth, and the stories they tell make up most of the running time. I'll talk about their part first. They run into another criminal who has a sack of money from all the people he's killed. They end up killing him for his money, taken to jail and ultimately hung for their crimes, telling stories to each other right up until the bitter end.
The first story takes place in a small town. The women of this town are wildly unfaithful, as are the preachers. One older man worries about his wife who seems to have changed recently. Turns out she's nailing a dozen different guys. He learns this by sneaking into the confession booth as she tells the preacher about her impropriety. Another man's wife cheats on him with a younger preacher with a shitty mustache. He walks in on the preacher jamming on his wife, stabs her, but lets the padre live. Instead he just forces him to cut off his own dick. The other story ends in a weirdly similar way. The wife that's getting it from most of the town's husband locks her in a dungeon like basement (completely nude, natch) and he cuts of his member and throws it at her. This action is never explained or rationalized at all.
The next story is about two shepherds. One, the thinner, tells the other how much fun it is to have sex with sheep. The other, the fatter, isn't having any of it. But he insists, bestiality is where it's at. Finally, the fatter agrees to give it a shot, but he couldn't do it with one of his own sheep. The thinner agrees to let the fatter use his prettiest sheep, and they run off together. The fatter, though, just can't pull the trigger. Then we see the real reason Thinner was trying to convince him, it was so he could run off and rape Fatter's wife! Haha, classic. The next time this happens, Fatter dresses in his wife's clothes and catches and murders Thinner. He then strings up thinner upside down, Mussolini style. It might be social commentary come to think of it.
The other stories continue like this. Casual rape, stabbing out the ying yang, etc. I'm never really sure if any of this is played for comedy, but good lord I hope not. The word "Bawdy" implies a lightheartedness that was shockingly absent in this movie.
Why Was It Forgotten? Well, there is the issue of casual rape. I get that there's a cultural divide between the puritanical United States and the freewheeling Europe, but I can't imagine this shit flew over there that well. One scene in the third story exists outside of that subplot entirely just so the character can forcibly deflower a virgin... at the behest of her mother. All this before he kills a Priest and gets beheaded.
What Went Right? I guess if that's what they were going for...
Verdict: Movies like this make me think "Maybe Nude For Satan wasn't so bad after all"
Score: 0%
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