Teresa Savoy is the "Bambina" (in more ways than one, unfortunately)

A handsome Italian businessman is trying to procure some land and some financing for a project from a wealthy contessa (Irene Papas). He sleeps with the woman and thinks he has sealed the deal, but then she insists that he marry her demented teenage daughter (Teresa Anne Savoy). He hatches an elaborate scheme to get out of the marriage: he is going to have the girl kidnapped and raped so he can claim she is not a virgin and have the marriage annulled (did I mention this is a COMEDY?!).

This is pretty disturbing stuff frankly, but not because of the kidnapping and rape scheme (which pretty quickly goes awry). It may not seem to exactly be every middle-aged man's worst nightmare to have to marry a sexy teenager--and the then eighteen-year-old Savoy was definitely a sexy teenager. However, her character literally has the mentality of a two year old throughout most of the movie--she sucks on the protagonist's thumb and cries when he takes it away, she giggles and squirms while he gives her a bath, etc. Of course, she doesn't consistently act infantile--at times she seems seductive or even nymphomaniacal, and he eventually falls for her. If you take this purely as an absurdist comedy, it's pretty harmless I guess. But if it's meant to be erotic, it's pretty damn disturbing unless you have some weird thing for female "adult babies". (I mean if you like your wife or girlfriend to act like an 18-year-old schoolgirl, that's a little kinky. If you're actually dating an 18 year old, well, that's certainly not illegal. But if you have an eighteen-year-old girlfriend and you like her to pretend like she's two, I'd say you have some serious problems. . .) 

Savoy went on to star in a couple Tinto Brass films, "Salon Kitty" and "Caligula", where she had just as many nude scenes, but did NOT act like a two year old. Alberto Lattuado, like a lot of French and Italian directors of that era it seems, is a bit of a "Humbert Humbert"--besides this, he directed "Dulce Enganni" where Catherine Spaak plays a schoolgirl involved with an older man and "Stay the Way You Are" where Marcello Masroanni plays a man who has an affair with sexy university student Nastassia Kinski, who may actually be his daughter. He was actually a pretty classy director though, and his movies are usually funnier and a lot less disturbing than they sound on paper. I don't a know about THIS particular one though. . .

Italian cinema has deeply influenced world cinema through its socially conscious realism and modernist experimentation, but it also flourished in popular genres like peplum (sword & sandal), giallo thrillers, and broad comedies. Its narratives often weave together politics, contemporary social change, class consciousness, and family dynamics, balancing artistic ambition with entertainment that resonated widely.

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An older man plans to marry a mentally-challenged, sex-crazed, adolescent girl.

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Lina Polito, Gigi Proietti, and Teresa Ann Savoy in Bambina (1974)

Irene Papas, Gigi Proietti, and Teresa Ann Savoy in Bambina (1974)

Irene Papas and Gigi Proietti in Bambina (1974)

Bambina

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