THE SWEET PUSSYCATS

THE SWEET PUSSYCATS: The world probably wouldn’t be a whole lot different without the Italian Sex Comedy. But it would be a lot less fun. Graced with the presence of the luminous Edwige Fenech, The Sweet Pussycats follows the genre’s standard operating procedure, with several suitors pursuing several scantily clad ladies who have their own romantic agendas. The set-up this time revolves around a pair of aristocrats fighting over the rights to a local castle who pledge to bequeath the estate to whoever can bed a pair of local virgins first. Fenech plays a visiting ex-lover who is looking for her own angle, while a handsome nephew is the story’s wild card, attracting the attention of every female character in the film and threatening to ruin the contest before it’s even begun. For all the flesh on display (Fenech fans take note, she bares quite a bit more than usual), director Josef Zacher’s production is fairly chaste, more interested in slapstick and sexual innuendo than the act itself. For Euro fans, this is Italian comfort food with its share of predictable bad jokes and lovably naïve characters. Although there’s doesn’t seem to be any restoration work done, MYA’s 1:66:1 transfer fills the screen quite well and includes a still gallery of lobby cards and posters.