When watching various interviews with Sergio Martino over the years,I've been curious over the mentions about him having started in the "Mondo" genre. Taking a look at a DVD sellers recent listings,I was thrilled to spot Martino's first film, leading to me collecting some sinful wages.
View on the film:
Getting into directing after spending the previous few years working as a assistant director and scriptwriter, director Sergio Martino teams up with future The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971-also reviewed) cinematographer Florian Trenker for the first time, and tantalisingly points to the psychedelic Gialli they would later make,with a groovy opening dance number.
Bouncing along to Peppino De Luca's plush Jazz score, Sergio teams up with his brother Luciano,for a screenplay where the Martino's mock the self-righteous, by layering Edmund Purdom's sardonic narration over Mondo/documentary footage of free-love Europe, with a highlight being making the claim that Germany has turned trains into outdoor bordellos in order to increase transport use.
Later making a number of Gialli which would focus on personal vice and gleefully offer a eyeful of skin, the screenplay by the Martino's has a strange, ill-fitting mix of being sarcastic one moment with the sleaze, and then being a total prune at going tut tut over footage of people in their most liberating moments, as they weigh the wages of sin.