Here’s a Unita review of Giuseppe Vari’s decameroticon Beffe, licenze et amori del Decamerone segreto, aka Love, Passion and Pleasure.
And now even Cecco Angiolieri arrives among the array of great authors stuck in the mire of bargain basement productions currently rampant on our screens. And while Boccaccio is at least physically reprieved Angiolieri suffers the worst sort of fate, being the named protagonist of of this film. The poet, transformed into an acrobat, conducts the fun. Shot with an ‘epidermic’ style, turgid and chaotic, the film is directed by Walter Pisani and stars Dado Crostarosa, Malisa Longo and Patrizia Viotti.
Note: I have a bit of a soft spot for Giuseppe Vari, who made some decent Spaghetti Westerns and Poliziotteschi, but I can’t say he’s someone who strikes me as a natural director of comedies. Dado Crostarosa, who plays the protagonist, was a typical non-star of the time, coming off the back of a small role in Lizzani’s Roma bene and Georges Lautner’s Flic Story. He also had the lead role in another decameroticon, Il decamerone proibito – le altre novelle del Boccaccio, before disappearing.
