No Smoking in Bed: “Fuego” (1969)

IF YOU NEED SOME EXERCISE, MAY WE SUGGEST JUMPING JACKS?: Isabel Sarli portrays an insatiable sex addict in “Fuego”, a film that fails to stretch the Argentine sex symbol’s acting chops, as she seems to always play, alternately, either a nymphomaniac or a nymphomaniac prostitute.

      “Fuego”  (1969)  

     One may accuse the cinematic works of Argentine actor-director Armando Bo of many things, but subtlety is not probable to be high on the list of likely suspects. In the initial clumsily executed moments of “Fuego” we are introduced to the main characters via a casual case of exhibitionism, an amused example of ungentlemanly voyeurism and  a dash of furtive and hostile glances from a housekeeper suspiciously protective of her mistress for reasons obviously more personal than a mere devotion to domestic  professionalism. It is readily apparent from this blunt tableaux that whatever follows is intended as a hothouse of unrestrained hormonal exertions punctuated by as much exposure as possible of star Isabel Sarli’s already well-traveled flesh. To admit in any way that the film succeeds in its primitive intentions is to acknowledge that the purveyors of 42nd Street grindhouse bump and grind have been met in tepid global partnership with a bar that is set to such a depressingly low level of aesthetic competence that makes the output of Michael Findlay seem artistically composed by comparison.

    Sarli plays Laura, an overripe seductress whose atrocious fashion sense is boldly accented by the excessive eye make-up and towering hairstyles from later career Elizabeth Taylor embarrassments, and who, by convenient happenstance, suffers from the most childish exhibitions of public nymphomania one is likely to encounter in the adult cinema. (Her favored self-stimulative move involves rubbing her cheek against a lifted shoulder, resulting in an intensity of erogenous gratification so exaggerated one wonders what orgasmic ignition might result from slinging a purse over her shoulder?)

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