| "The
Insatiables" (which is the English-language release title
of "Femmine Insaziabili") is a marvelous treat from
beginning to end. The plot steers itself from drama to comedy
to adventure to thrills to suspense, and so on and so on, to
say the film is insatiable is not an understatement.
Robert Hoffmann (in a terrific performance, much better than
his work in "The Lonely Violent Beach" the following
year)stars as a man who at first hides his best friend from
the hoods who are out to get him, and suffers a violent beating
as a result (this is the first film I have seen where vomit
was carefully considered in the color schemes). The friend is
eventually killed nevertheless, and Hoffmann spends the rest
of the film searching for answers. Along the way he is distracted
by potential female love interests of all ages and constantly
finds himself in physical and romantic danger.
Bruno Nicolai's score is a major asset to the success of the
film, bouncy, sugary, yet thriving and pulsating at the appropriate
moments. The female cast is as eye-catching as the score is
ear-catching, with Lucianna Paluzzi showing lots of skin and
60's chick Romina Power doing what she does best, playing a
zonked-out, swinging rich-hippie girl, and the psychedelic orgy/film
sequence where her character is introduced takes on a life of
its own and steers the viewer momentarily right back to the
late 1960's. To cap it off, the film takes the viewer on such
a delirious ride that it is terrific to discover that the film
wraps up in a satisfying, not-terribly-clichéd ending.
Watching this fun thriller makes it all the more puzzling how
the same director could make 1972's "Scenes From a Murder",
aka "The Final Curtain", with Telly Savalas and Anne
Heywood, which is so mind-numbingly boring and bland it is hard
to stay awake through to the end; the opposite is true of "The
Insatiables" -- you won't want it to end.
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