The Alcove

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Trailer—The Alcove

The Alcove_720p(480P)

source: The Alcove

Ugo Moretti wrote the Carroll Baker giallo Paranoia AKA Orgasmo and for that, we should be thankful. This is another of his scripts - based on The Alcove by Judith Wexley* - which is the story of Elio De Silveris (Al Cliver), a war veteran, who returns from the Second Abyssinian War with a prisoner of war. That POW, Zerbal, ends up being Laura Gemser and you know exactly where a Gemser and D'Amato movie is going. While the master of the house was in combat, his wife Alessandra (Lilli Carati, Escape from Women's Prison) had an affair with Elio's secretary Wilma (Annie Belle, who dated Cliver from 1975 to 1978; she's also in House On the End of the Park and Absurd). Now that he's back home working on his book, Mrs. Elio is getting with the African princess and who can blame her? There's also Elio's son and a gardner who are part of the coupling and decoupling in the house, which soon becomes a place of jealousy and then Elio gets the bright idea that he should start making adult movies - in 1937! - and soon there's a power struggle for who really is in control. And then Zerbal enacts a ritual to prove once and for all who really is the master in this whole love square. Or hexagon. Or man, who knows, it's a lot of people. When D'Amato is making an adult film that works, it really works. This is one of those, a movie where the story is just as important as all the horizontal moments. *Much like most of the quotes in Fulci movies and the Necronomicon, this book does not exist.

I observe that it's dubbed chiefly because most of these inexpensive imports -- and all the imports from the 1950s in their ENTIRETY -- seem to be dubbed by the same half-dozen people. They're vaguely British, very precisely articulated, and overemphatic. The men seem to be aiming for a particular image: a brute of a construction worker with a coffee-grinder voice, although if he is a gentleman he may sound more like a pouf. The women's voices show less differentiation. Mostly, they sound like some winsome lady behind the check-out counter at the local library, sweet with efficiency and all set to help you find that book on Mycenaean pottery. I don't know how much the story is worth bothering with. It's early in World War II, a young Italian aristocrat returns to his majestic villa with a gift from an Abyssinian chief, namely his daughter. According to the local customs, she is now his slave. The aristocrat is drained by his snooty wife and enters a refractory state on his first night home. Little does he know that in his absence, his wife has been getting it on with the pretty young secretary. Now you've got three women and one man. The women are either getting it on with one another or jealous. Make a mental note. You cannot have more than one woman dominant in a household. I refer you to the work of the anthropologist S. F. Nadel, who discovered that in a polygamous society, when the wives live in the same huts, witchcraft accusations soar. If the wives live in separate huts -- no witchcraft. Q. E. D. Anyway -- will someone help me down from this pulpit? My shoe seems to be stuck. Thank you. Anyway, all kinds of emotional tangles develop, not really worth explaining. What DOES need explaining is how an Italian aristocrat can return to his luxurious mansion with a native girl, shed his uniform, and decide to become a writer overnight. What do you do, just quit Il Duce's Army when you feel like it? In wartime? What the hell kind of an Army do you call that? How come I couldn't do it, not even in peacetime? No wonder Il Duce managed to lose every colony he had, including Italian Salamiland. But to get to the important part, there is an abundance of female nudity, frontal, dorsal, medial, proximal, distal, sagittal, coronal, transverse, external, and internal. In particular, you get to know Lilli Carati's nipples on a first-name basis. You can even discern the seventeen lactiferous ducts opening onto each one. There is a good deal of simulated sex in this ménage but most of it is cunnilingus or an approximation of it. It's a shame that the film aims so low because there's a lot of potential in the plot. I'm not think so much of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" as I'm thinking of Joseph Losey's "The Servant." It's masterfully done, while this one is mostly junk.

Alcove, The (1984) ** (out of 4) Interesting tale from D'Amato about a Captain (Al Cliver) returning from a battle in Africa where he was given a slave, Zerbal (Laura Gemser) as a gift for saving a tribal leader. Back at home his wife (Lilli Carati) is having an affair with her secretary (Annie Belle) but soon Zerbal begins to come between them but it might be more than just your typical lesbian affair. I was really surprised with this film because it's actually very well-made and features a pretty good story. One is probably going to walk into this thing expecting nothing but a sex romp and while there is a lot of sex it really never takes center stage over the story being told. D'Amato made a very long career out of sex movies so this one here is certainly a lot different than many of the items he was releasing around this period. What really stands out is the actual production. The film takes place during the 1940s so we've got the older cars, costumes and set design, all of which is extremely good looking. Another plus is the cinematography from D'Amato, which to me is his greatest aspect (a lot better than his directing). All of this makes for a pretty interesting atmosphere and most of the sex scenes are quite erotic (though some enter a camp level). The film also benefits from an fun Euro-cult cast with Gemser leading the way as the obvious sex object to everyone. If you've seen any of her films with D'Amato then you should know what to expect. Belle really stands out and delivers a fine performance as does Carati. Cliver, God bless him, is his usual fun self. What keeps the movie from being even better is its rather slow pacing and it also goes on a tad bit too long at 93-minutes. I think a good ten minutes could have been cut out and we really wouldn't have lost anything story-wise. The film is pretty straight-forward and is well-made but at the end of the day this here is still going to be for D'Amato completest only.

Following a successful campaign in Africa, soldier Elio De Silveris (Al Cliver) returns home to his wife Alessandra (Lilli Carati) bearing all manner of exotic souvenirs, the most unusual being Zerbal (Laura Gemser), an Abyssinian princess presented to him as a slave in return for saving the king's life. At first Allesandra is hostile to Zerbal, as is Elio's sexy secretary Wilma (Annie Bell), with whom Allesandra has been having a lesbian affair in her husband's absence; but when ownership of Zerbal is transferred to Allessandra (in a strange ritual that entails plenty of licking), the lusty wife's attitude does a 180 degree turn and she takes the dusky maiden for her lover, putting Wilma's nose severely out of joint. Soon, scheming Zerbal becomes the domineering force in the household. This mid-career effort from prolific Italian sleaze merchant Joe D'amato sees the seasoned exploitation director tentatively entering Tinto Brass territory, delivering plenty of 1930s period charm, an atmosphere of constant sexual tension, loads of lush cinematography, and, of course, oodles of soft-focus, soft-core coupling with the emphasis on lesbianism. No stranger to capturing smut on camera, D'amato masterfully handles the steamy action, concentrating his attention on the sensuality of the lovemaking, although one can sense that the director is yearning to go further, his camera permanently on the prowl for even the slightest glimpse of snatch. Eventually, Joe just can't help himself and sneaks in some genuine hardcore filth and old school exploitation during the film's final act: the graphic sex arrives in the form of a (genuine?) vintage stag flick screened by Elio, who intends to raise some much needed cash by making similar films, with his three women as his stars. Amazingly, the ladies agree to the project, but when the camera begins to roll, in true D'amato style, events turn decidedly nasty: Wilma is bound and abused by Allesandra and Zerbal, and raped by Elio's eager gardener Pepe (who has been planning to tend to her bush ever since spying it in the garden). After the ordeal is over, an understandably upset Wilma vows to make them pay for what they have done to her. From an exploitation fan's point of view, this lurid rape/revenge scenario is a great way to end matters, and narrowly saves The Alcove from being just another vapid mid-eighties piece of Euro-erotica. Not essential D'amato, but not entirely worthless either, I rate The Alcove a reasonable 5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

D'Amato comes over all Tinto Brass in this tale of fascism and twisted passion set in 1930s Italy. A faded aristocrat military officer returns from the Abyssinian war with a dusky slave girl as a prize; at first, his bisexual wife and his secretary (who is also the wife's lover) dislike the girl intensely, making racist comments about her skin colour and "smell." But soon the girl charms her way into the mistress' affection, supplanting both secretary and husband. This causes jealousies to fester. The aristocrat has other problems. He tries to make a career as a writer but this doesn't bring in enough cash to pay off his debts, so he buys a movie camera and decides to make stag films as a means of income. Of course, wife, secretary and slave are supposed to star in the film. The two strands of the story come together in a film within the film, as the secretary is sexually humiliated on camera by the two other women and a grimy old gardener. At this point in the film, the slave girl seems to be gaining ascendance, but the secretary brings in her ally, the master's cadet son, and they put the Other to death in flames, holding hands as she burns in a perfect picture of that alliance between the middle classes and militarism which was political fascism. The film has many intriguing features. The slave's rise from household toy to manipulative mistress is a Steerpike-like climb which ultimately does her no good – suggesting that colonised people who play the white man's game will ultimately be undone in their European ambitions as the priggish right-wing white middle classes wreak their revenge. The aristocratic man's trajectory is also compelling, from "great white god" (as the secretary describes him) through failed literary gent to pornographer – almost the trajectory of European society since the war (which makes the film possibly a prophecy of the future as much as a vision of the past). The film is measured and plays out like a classy piece of eroticism, but the drama continually brews away with shifting alignments and eruptions of desire always around every corner to keep the narrative moving. The film offers no succour to either liberationists nor liberals, as it predicts the failure of individual identity politics alongside a portrait of permissiveness as terminal decadence. D'Amato's own gradual slide into * was in process as the film was made and with his muse Laura Gemser as the Abyssinian slave, one could also take the film as a kind of mordant and resigned comment on his own career, a cultured and privileged European male dragged down into a mess of pornographic pottage by his own financial needs and his putting before his own society a beautiful black Emanuelle.

Joe D'Amato laves his cannibal past and ventures into soft core *. It is really more than an exhibition of full frontal - there is certainly enough of that. It actually has an interesting story about the fall of the landed gentry. The Colonel (Al Cliver - Zombie, The Beyond) returns from war with a chief's daughter (Laura Gemser - Black Emmanuel) in tow. His wife (Lilli Carati - Miss Italy 1975) is at first dismissive of the woman and certainly racist in her comments. Gemser is not happy with her position, and soon discovers that the wife and the Colonel's secretary (Annie Belle - The House on the Edge of the Park) have their own thing going. She plot to get the wife on her side using her considerable skills at lovemaking. Meanwhile, the Colonel is discovering he is a failure as a writer and the banks are clamoring at the door. He decides to make * films. Things do not go well for Belle, as she is paired with the gardener (Roberto Caruso). But, she gets her revenge in the end. The cinematography was excellent.