Fernando Di Leo’s SEDUCTION (La Seduzione—1973) – The Blu Review

Review by Roger Carpenter

Italian director Fernando Di Leo is best known for his violent poliziotteschi, or crime films, like Caliber 9, The Italian Connection, The Boss, and Kidnap Syndicate, to name a few.  However, like the majority of working Italian directors in the 70’s and 80’s, he worked in many genres including WWII pictures (Code Name, Red Roses), horror (Slaughter Hotel; Madness), and erotic dramas (Burn, Boy, Burn; A Wrong Way to Love).  Seduction falls into this latter category.

Maurice Ronet stars as Giuseppe Lagan, a European playboy come back from Paris to settle his dead father’s affairs.  He arrives in Catania, Sicily, and immediately rekindles his old friendship with Alfredo (Pino Caruso), a schoolmate of Giuseppe’s who is now a prominent jeweler in town.  As they reminisce about their old flames, Giuseppe asks about Caterina (Lisa Gastoni), an ex-lover he’s never forgotten.  It seems Caterina has been recently widowed and is now available again.  Alfredo sets up a “chance meeting” between the two where Giuseppe confesses his love for Caterina and, before too long, the two are caught up in a mid-life love affair.

The two lovers only have eyes for each other though Caterina’s teenaged daughter Graziella (Jenny Tamburi) also has Giuseppe in her sights.  As the young girl begins to flirt with Giuseppe, his patriarchal love for Graziella begins to heat up to a sexual fervor neither can deny.  Thus, the daughter and her mother’s lover embark on a torrid love affair and throw all caution to the wind while doing so.

Seduction is Di Leo’s take on the age-old Lolita story.  The tale initially casts Giuseppe as a handsome, middle-aged jet setter ready to settle down in his hometown with his old flame.  Though still quite good-looking and naturally suave, he’s sewn his wild oats across the continent and is now looking to indulge in a quiet life with the woman he’s never quite been able to forget.  Caterina is initially distant and perhaps a bit reluctant to rekindle the relationship. Her widowhood is still new and she’s not sure she or her daughter are ready for another relationship.  But Giuseppe convinces with astonishing speed and the two engage in a torrid affair almost from their first meeting.

Yet it isn’t long before Graziella begins to come on to Giuseppe.  In one of the iconic scenes in the film, Giuseppe sits on the edge of a couch on which Graziella is curled up reading a magazine.  As he spreads out the paper, Graziella kicks off her shoes and places her feet in Giuseppe’s lap.  Giuseppe is at first startled and dismissive of this naïve young girl’s awkward placement of her lower limbs.  But shock turns to realization and then to lust as Graziella continues to maneuver her legs as well as her body on the couch for maximum stimulation.  By the time Giuseppe pushes Graziella’s skirt up to expose her electric blue panties and to caress her milky white thigh, all pretenses have been summarily tossed away.  The scene is fraught with nervous sexual tension, climaxing with a rude dismissal when the front door slams shut as Caterina enters the home.  Graziella pops up playfully and, childlike, dismisses Giuseppe as she bounces to her room.  Caterina enters the living area, embracing Giuseppe as the lovers kiss.  And so begins Giuseppe’s recognition of Graziella’s burgeoning sexuality.

As so often happens once one recognizes a quality within another, Giuseppe begins to see touches of that quality—in this case, Graziella’s sexuality–in nearly everything she does.  At one point he walks in on Graziella and her best friend Rosina playing records loudly and dancing.  Graziella is in a frilly dress while Rosina has dressed as a man, complete with inked-on mustache.  Giuseppe watches uncomfortably as the two continue to dance, bumping and grinding their way through the tango and playfully kissing on the mouth as a young couple would typically do.  It all seems innocent enough as Graziella pretends to ignore Giuseppe except the viewer is distinctly aware that Graziella knows exactly what she is doing even as Giuseppe stands awestruck with no idea how to react to this tease.

Another scene begins innocently enough with Graziella mopping the floor while Giuseppe lounges on the same couch where the two flirted earlier.  Graziella wears a loose-fitting, floral-print dress that accentuates her hips and buttocks as she bends over the water pail, sometimes exposing her ample cleavage when she faces Giuseppe and bends over the mop.  Giuseppe is utterly entranced.  Graziella lifts her dress to dry her hands, exposing more flesh then she needs to while Giuseppe looks on.  The two exchange pleasantries until they decide to read a magazine together.  This time Giuseppe leads the dance with Graziella following his lead like an expert:  “Do you want to read this magazine?” Giuseppe asks.  “Let’s read it together,” is Graziella’s reply.  Thus the couple find themselves lying together on the couch.  Graziella holds the magazine as Giuseppe caresses her forearms. “Turn the page,” she orders.  Giuseppe dutifully turns the page, this time returning his hand to Graziella’s chest.  “Turn the page,” she orders again.  Giuseppe smiles as he understands the game.  But soon enough the steamy flirtations turn to full-on lovemaking.  Giuseppe and Graziella continue to ignore the potential disaster of discovery as Giuseppe leaves Caterina’s bed during the night to make love to Graziella, only a thin wall separating the two women and their shared lover.  One can see where this game will eventually lead.

Seduction is a little slow and perhaps a bit too talky.  But the early scenes of Graziella seducing Giuseppe are fraught with sexual tension.  This tension is magnified as Giuseppe, the experienced European playboy, attempts to take control of the relationship only for Graziella to turn the tables on him.  He willingly submits to her every whim.  Turn the page. Do this.  Do that.  Leave my mother’s bed and come to me in the night.  Graziella is magnetic, alternately an innocent, flirtatious early teen and a young woman who knows what she wants and how to get it.  For his part, Giuseppe is a bit of a scum.  He admits to himself and to others that he has all he wants in Caterina, yet he can’t escape the raw sexual power of Graziella as Lolita.  Men can’t help but think with their crotches as Caterina points out once the illicit relationship is discovered.  And Caterina is right—Giuseppe may have been seduced, but he allowed it to happen to himself.  And, far from feeling guilty about it, Giuseppe feels sorrow for being caught.  He continues the relationship with Graziella even as he and Caterina try to work things out, even going so far as to sneak in an affair with Graziella’s friend Rosina when the offer is presented to him.

Graziella is depicted as a ripe and sexy young woman bursting with sexuality alternating with typical teenage outbursts of emotion.  Early on those outbursts are fun as when she dances with her friend; later she is shown to be a manipulative little brat who simply wants to get her way, insisting she and Giuseppe are in love even as Giuseppe insists they are not, and browbeating her mother into allowing Giuseppe back into Caterina’s home.  Jenny Tamburi as Graziella plays the part with panache.  She is equal parts girl-child and sexy young woman.  It’s easy to see why Tamburi became a staple of soft-core Italian films in the 70’s and 80’s before retiring from pictures and passing away at age 53.  She is voluptuous in the classic Greek style and, even at age 21, had no qualms about shedding her clothes.  She starred in Rino Di Silvestro’s Women in Cellblock 7 the same year as Seduction and went on to star in a good number of low-budget Italian genre fare such as Sergio Martino’s Suspicious Death of a Minor, the softcore sex comedy Frankenstein—Italian Style, and Lucio Fulci’s The Psychic.  Perhaps her low point was the atrocious The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine.

Lisa Gastoni, who is still acting in her early 80’s, was 33 at the time of Seduction, which would have made her a bit of a Lolita for leading man Maurice Ronet, who was nearly a decade older than Gastoni.  Gastoni plays Caterina as icy early on before she warms up to Giuseppe, later on showing her true acting chops as the distraught mother whose lover has betrayed her with her own daughter.  Interviews have indicated Gastoni was perhaps a little tentative in wanting to appear nude with such a young co-star as Tamburi and her nude scenes are quite brief.  Pino Caruso is a bit irritating as Alfredo, the big-mouthed braggart that plays overbearing companion to Ronet’s relatively low-key Giuseppe.  Alfredo is always bragging about bagging all the women in town, surrounding himself with lecherous older men who you just know are using his stories as a kind of verbal Viagra https://findsildenafilgeneric.com/. One also gets the sense that his tales are false and everyone knows it.  Alfredo knows that everyone understands this but it’s all he has.  He goes on and on, dispensing advice to anyone who will listen.  While the character was probably intended as comedy relief, once he sets up Giuseppe and Caterina early in the film, he could have been dispensed with.

The real-life setting of Catania, Sicily, is a beautiful backdrop for this tale of lust and is enhanced by Luis Enriquez Bacalov’s beautifully lush score, even if Di Leo’s direction is a bit workmanlike.  Seduction isn’t as controversial as some of Di Leo’s earlier works and not as action-oriented as his poliziotteschi films, but it’s a solid effort and worth catching.

RARO video has been something of a supporter of Di Leo’s films lately, releasing many of his crime thrillers as well as his two horror outings on DVD or Blu-ray over the past few years.  Though billed as digitally restored there are some minor flaws with the picture, including occasional debris and a couple of places where one assumes the film was simply too damaged to correct.  These are very minor yet easy to pick out when they occur; the film as a whole is gorgeous to view with good sound and new, improved subtitles.  The only extra is a half-hour interview with Di Leo, Tamburi, and other crew members.  It’s a nice addition and it’s a hoot to listen to 70-year-old Di Leo (who has since passed) attempt to distinguish between pedophiles and adults who fall under the spell of a sexually mature minor.  I’m not entirely sure today’s ultra-politically correct thinking would allow the same distinction Di Leo makes.  The Blu-Ray comes with a nice booklet though both cardboard sleeve and booklet cover give away the surprise ending to the film which is a bit disappointing.

I’m a fan of Di Leo’s work.  He’s always seemed to be a bit underrated and overlooked when Italian genre cinema is discussed.  While Seduction may be one of his lesser works, it is nevertheless worth viewing.  Kino Lorber is distributing the film which can be found at kinolorber.com or through Amazon.