A Viúva Virgem

The movie begins with a funny and considerably well done comedy (after some nice animated opening credits) story about glutton lecherous Coronel Alexandrão with a virgin shy woman in Minas Gerais (by the title you may expect what happens...), which could have been adapted as a short film. Unfortunately, most of the movie, held in Rio de Janeiro, is just a silly chaotic camp with few good gags, specifically when it comes to the negotiations about the scheme and the metaphyisical issue. It is a bad exploitation film, anyway. The hemophobic last part is just a nonsense graft full of stupid prejudice, with no plausible relation with the story ever since.

In Minas Gerais, the powerful "colonel" Alexandrão (Carlos Imperial) gets married with the young and virgin Cristina (Adriana Pietro) and promotes a huge wedding party in his farm. He eats and drinks a lot along the day, and in his "first night" with the bride, he dies before consummating his marriage. The marital status of Cristina becomes very unusual, being a virgin widow. Her doctor advises her to travel to Rio de Janeiro to rest, and she moves with her aunt to an inherited apartment in Leme. Once in Rio de Janeiro, the rascal Constantino (Jardel Filho), who is aware of her wealth, courts her and borrows money, clothes and a Mercedes Benz from his friends, pretending he is businessman man. His friends release "stocks" in a parallel stock market, based and supported in the expectation of the possible marriage of Constantino with Cristina. However, the ghost of Coronel Alexandrão appears for her whenever she intends to have sex with Constantino.

"A Viúva Virgem" is an erotic comedy from a dark period of Brazilian cinema history. The military dictatorship installed in my country stimulated this type of silly erotic movie called "pornochanchada" to the population. "A Viúva Virgem" was very famous and one of the best, indeed a milestone and a symbol of a successful "pornochanchada" of those times. All of them were very popular low budget movies, having ham actors and actresses, and many naked models and gross low level jokes. This was one of the last movies of the gorgeous Adriana Pietro, who died in a road accident in 1974, when she was only twenty-four years old. This movie is a good opportunity also to revisit the wonderful city of Rio de Janeiro in the 70's, before being partially destroyed by the slums and the construction boom. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Viúva Virgem" ("The Virgin Widow")

Note: On 01 April 2011, I saw this film again.