Page 141 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

so would capture telephone poles or other unwanted images.5 This problem did not exist with nun
films that naturally had to occur within the secretive walls of the convent and whose very nature was
'cloister-phobic' to begin with. A remarkable example of the economies of making nunsploitation is
Bruno Mattei's and Claudio Fragasso's ability to make both L'altro inferno {The Other Hell, 1980) and
la vera storia della monaca di Monza {The True Story of the Nun of Monza, 1980) simultaneously by
using the same habits, actors and building for both films.10 Fragasso shot The Other Hell downstairs,
while Mattei shot the Monza film upstairs, and they would trade places if a particular area of expertise
was requited, resulting in about 70 per cenr Fragasso/30 per cent Mattei credit for the two films. The
'convent-sexy's affordability made it zfilone worth investing in and one to extend for as long as the
trend would last.
Cinematically, there were several trends that triggeted the beginning of nunsploitation in 1971.
Two key influences were the Medieval sex comedies and Ken Russell's film, The Devils, and a third, less
direct, influence was the story of the nun of Monza. The first influence comes from the development
of the Italian sex comedy and in particular the Medieval/Renaissance sex comedy strain, the nun-filled
Decameron-erotico, or 'Decam-erotico'. Triggered by the successes of Mario Monicelli's popular
Medieval costume comedies, L'armata Brancaleone {The Brancaleone Armada, 1966) and Brancaleone
alle crociate {Brancaleone at the Crusades, 1970), and Pasolini's 'art film' trilogy (// Decameron, I
racconti di Canterbury {Canterbury Tales, 1972) and Fiore delle mille e una notte {A Thousand and
One Nights, 1974)), a flurry of Decamerotico films were produced from 1971-76. These playful sex
comedies took advantage of the changing times, the increase in overt exploitational sexual content in
films, as well as the literary inspirations for these films that were perhaps the only existing texts that
defended the naturalness of sexual desire and embraced sex playfully and non-judgmentally.
The importance of the Decamerotico as a nunsploitation influence is that it provides one visual
progression from nun 'shorts' to nun feature-length films. These films, like Boccaccio's original
The Decameron, usually consisted of a number of short stories with comic and sexual plotlines. The
appearance of nun-filled vignettes in these sex comedies was quite a natural one, for the literary
source for the stories already included several comic tales of monks and nuns who sought and found
sexual gratification. Of the book's one hundred tales, one of the most famous - the Masetto story of
Day 3 Novel 1 - recounts the story of a group of nuns who take advantage of and share their young,
handsome gardener. The earliest cinematic examples of Decamerotico shorts follow the literary short-
story structure and make their homage clear with titles such as Fratello homo, sorella bona — nelBoccaccio
superproibito {Get Thee to a Nunnery, 1973). Another literary short story with erotic nuns comes from
Renaissance writer Pierro Arerino, who devored a third of his highly pornographic Dialogues to all
sorts of decadent and orgiastic convent activities. A Decamerotico film that follows the same rules
of vignette structure and title homage is Le notti peccaminose di Pietro I'Aretino {The Sinful Nights of
Pietro Aretino, 1972). In one of its vignettes, a monk is called to a convent to heal a nun who has been
struck by the devil's work. The monk's healing consists of his and the nun's playful sexual intercourse
and a promise for later meetings. Soon all of the other nuns beg to be healed of the same ailment and
the monk must exhaustedly offer his services to each of the members of the convent. Finally, a non-
vignette Decamerotico film from the same year, La bella Antonia prima monica epoi dimonia {Naughty
Nun, 1972) by Mariano Laurenti, helped to introduce longer segments on convent life that would

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