Amazon.com Customer Reviews
 Rated 3 out of 5
Softcore deconstruction of ’’la dolce vita’’
CAMILLE 2000 (USA 1969): During a visit to Rome, the romantic Armand (Nino Castelnuovo) falls in love with a promiscuous young Countess (Daniele Gaubert), but their unlikely romance is opposed by Castelnuovo’’s wealthy father (Massimo Serato), and Fate deals a tragic blow...A sexed-up love story for the swinging Sixties, adapted from a literary source (Alexandre Dumas’’ ’’La Dame aux Camellias’’) by screenwriter Michael DeForrest, and directed with cinematic flair by Radley Metzger who, along with Russ Meyer and Joe Sarno (amongst others), is credited with redefining the parameters of ’’Adult’’ cinema throughout the 1960’’s and 70’’s. Using the scope format for the last time in his career, Metzger’’s exploration of ’’la dolce vita’’ is rich in visual excess (note the emphasis on reflective surfaces, for example), though the film’’s sexual candor seems alarmingly coy by modern standards. Production values are handsome throughout, and while the actors are slightly hamstrung by post-sync dubbing, the performances are engaging and humane (Castelnuovo and Gaubert are particularly memorable). Though set in an unspecified future, Enrico Sabbatini’’s wacked-out set designs locate the movie firmly within its period, and Piero Piccioni’’s ’’wah-wah’’ music score has become something of a cult item amongst exploitation devotees. Ultimately, CAMILLE 2000 is an acquired taste, but fans of Metzger’’s brand of elegant softcore erotica won’’t be disappointed. The movie runs a generous 116m 33s on Image’’s all-region DVD, which letterboxes the wide Panavision frame at 2.35:1, without anamorphic enhancement. The print is a little ragged in places, particularly at reel-ends, where a couple of lines of dialogue have been clipped by the ravages of time, though the overall presentation is fair. Similarly, the 1.0 mono soundtrack is a little unbalanced, with occasional dips in volume during dialogue exchanges, but nothing too distracting. There are no captions or subtitles, and no extras except for a trailer which offers little more than a series of still-frames, set against Piccioni’’s memorable (though irritating) theme music. Next up for Metzger was THE LICKERISH QUARTET (Esotika Erotika Psicotika, 1970), which many consider his best film.  Rated 1 out of 5
Stunk
Lame, lame, lame. Rich men, expensive brothel... blah, blah, blah. Waste of money. Don’’t believe me? Rent it first. Rated 4 out of 5
GREAT EARLY 70s PSYCHO-ITALIANA
An old story gets a soft-porn twist in Metzger’’s 1970 outing. Some artfully framed sex scenes, Piero Piccioni’’s catchy, sexy soundrack, and some fun costumes of the period-imagining-the-not-too-distant-furture make the enterprise a cut way above most films of this genre. Production design fans will like it for no reason other than its aesthethic, which recalls Pietro Germi’’s great TENTH VICTIM of four years earlier (1966). This was Metzger’’s best foray before Zalman King usurped the genre (you know, TWO MOON JUNCTION and all that jazz). What one should really do though is find the incredible score by Maestro Piero Piccioni (available on Easy Tempo Records). It’’s a seductive tapestry of orchestral, psychedelic, and organ-funk sounds with a never-ending bass line.Art...uh, no. Wack, fun filmmaking of its period, most certainly.
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