User reviews

Culture is useful but in this movie it ends up dazzling those who seek it making them crash. Simple and funny movie in which ignorance and manual work takes its revenge on the professors and the wise.

Director Guliano Carnimeo directed one of the more memorable (if not necessarily one of the best) gialli, "The Case of the Bloody Irises", as well as interesting and unusual crime drama "Secrets of a Call Girl", both featuring Edwige Fenech. Here though he was apparently reduced to directing a "liceale" (high school-themed) Italian sex comedy. But instead of having Fenech as a sexy teacher or Gloria Guida as a sexy student, he has Carmen Russo playing the pampered young wife of a wealthy butcher who goes back to a private liceale in order to become "cultured". How ANYONE is going to become cultured at this place is hard to fathom. You have the usual gang of ridiculously overaged "students" who do nothing but pull stupid pranks and spy on Russo and her roommate (Cinzia DiPonti) as they shower. The "adults" are even bigger idiots: they include her husband who keeps trying to sneak into the school, the battle-axe of a headmistress who's so sexually frustrated she'll go to bed with an anatomy skeleton, an idiotic professor who Russo's character unaccountably has a crush on, and an enterprising janitor who makes money renting ladders and staging elaborate ruses to help people get in and out of the school.

This is obviously a REALLY dumb movie, but that's kind of like complaining that the hard liquor you're drinking straight out of the bottle doesn't really taste very good--it's hardly the point. Carmen Russo has an incredible body and you get to see all of it several times. Same with Di Ponti (Miss Italy 1979) and several of the other girls. None of the actresses is nearly as talented as Edwige Fenech, or even Gloria Guida, but that's OK I guess. And at least Lino Banfi isn't in this--they more than fill the male idiocy quota without him.

Although an avid fanatic of Italian cult cinema of the 70s and 80s in general, I never really liked the stereotypical sex comedies released in those same decades. Sure I'll watch them if I have the chance, simply because I like female breasts just as much as any normal and healthy guy, but I never pro-actively seek them out like I do with Gialli, Poliziotesschi or Spaghetti Westerns. The reason is simple; - Italian sexploitation flicks are quite stupid. Even though made by some of the country's greatest exploitation directors (Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Marino Girolami, Antonio Margheriti, ...) and starring some of the most ravishing cult wenches of all times (Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet, Femi Benussi, Gloria Guida, ...) these comedies are somehow always embarrassingly un-funny, infantile and dull. "My Wife goes back to School" is one of the absolute worst, and I don't even know why I'm wasting words it, since it doesn't even star an elite cult actress. Carmen Russo has an exquisite body, but she can't compete with anyone from the above shortlist. The script is a chain of a couple of lame running gags that get repeated, again and again. Valentina, the voluptuous wife of a successful butcher (who's a sexist pig himself), is sick and tired of her uncultured existence. She decides to subscribe to college, very much against the will of her husband Aristide. Not so much because he doesn't want his wife to be lectured, but solely because he can't stand spending a single night without fondling her breasts. So, while the entire male population at college attempts to catch a glimpse of Valentina in the shower, her own lawful husband must pay huge amounts of Italian Lires to the irritating janitor (who's seemingly in a permanent state of drunkenness) to sneak into her room. The jokes are the kind that make you go eye-rolling, including loud flatulating, idiotic disguises or falling from ladders. The most overdone gag is that Valentina loses her skirt, because it gets stuck between a door or ripped off by a mugger. She has a lovely behind, but she really ought to consider buying clothes of better quality! The main plot is still tolerable, but the supportive characters are immensely annoying. Apart from the janitor, they include a sexually frustrated head mistress and an art professor who's just as horny and unbalanced as his students. Wait, isn't there anything positive to mention? Well sure: Carmen Russo's shower sequence is worth rewinding, her roommate is a former Miss Italy and some random but incredibly attractive girl takes her clothes off because she has a headache!