Page 140 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

during the 1960s. By the 1970s, although government censorship was still in place, the Church could
rarely muster the influence to interfere with film releases (beyond its usual public denouncements)
and could not stop the majority of religiously themed films such as Pasolini's // Decameron (The
Decameron, 1971) and nunsploitation films.
It would be erroneous, however, to picture the situation as a type of cinematic explosion out of a
period of Church repression. Arguably, the economics of the film industry had a greater influence on
the record production of nunsploitation films in Italy than changes in clerical regulation. By the time
any cultural shifts were finding visual realisation on screens around the world, the Italian film industry
already had a well-established popular and 'trash' film wing that was happy to benefit from showing
nudity and adult situations. With the rise of television and other competing entertainments, Italian
movie ticket sales had been steadily on the decline since the mid-1950s and film studios struggled
to create products that would guarantee high or even mediocre profits.6 Thus, from the early 1960s,
film production and distribution began to split between the few well-financed and widely distributed
'quality' films and the low-budget and regionally distributed exploitation 'quickies'.7 If a given film
proved successfully entertaining or titillating, a series (or, in Italian, 'filone') of copycat 'quickies' were
hurriedly cranked out and distributed to take advantage of the short-lived trend. This was the case for
so many Italian popular and cult filoni of the period such as the 'Mondo' films, peplums, spaghetti
westerns, sex comedies and gialli. Nunsploitation, like these other genres, was to find its moment in
the spotlight, and its time was to come around 1971.
Thus, though it is possible to see the proliferation of nun films as something particularly Italian
for its Catholic culture, it is extremely important not to lose sight of the central role that the - also
particularly Italian - filone industry played in the rise of Italian nunsploitation. Italy produced more
nunsploitation films than any other nation for the same reason that it produced more peplums,
spaghetti westerns and sex comedies than any other nation. Its filone industry was based on the over-
production of films and the over-saturation of the market of any trend that would get people in the
theatres as soon and as often as possible.
For producers to succeed at making money or breaking even with the quickies, they needed
filone themes that would attract a large enough audience and movies that were not expensive to
throw together. As Christopher Wagstaff has argued, filone films such as spaghetti westerns appealed
to 'a typical Italian audience member' of the late 1960s and early 1970s by providing 'either one
or a combination of three pay-offs: laughter, thrill, titillation'.8 In the same way that the poliziesco
crime films combined thrills and titillation, and sex comedies provided laughter and titillation, the
nunsploitation filone was amenable to any combination of the three as it shifted between sex comedy,
soft porn and even horror during its short lifetime. Nudity and sexual subject matter helped increase
the appeal of nunsploitation to its male viewers.
Making nunsploitation films also appealed to producers because, as with peplums and westerns,
it was possible to recycle sets and costumes and therefore lower production costs. In fact, it offered
the advantage that nun habits were simpler and easier to acquire than cowboy or gladiator outfits,
and one rarely had to worry about variety of costume from film to film. Also, since even cheaply
made spaghetti westerns and gialli demanded a certain budget for outdoor location scenes, they often
suffered from claustrophobically from stilted shots that could not pan or zoom out because doing

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