La Ragazzina: Monika

Gloria Guida's debut.

This is one of the first films of Gloria Guida, in fact it is her debut film! she was only nineteen years old at the time of the filming (1974) Unlike many speculators who claim Guida, like many other European bombshells began their nude career before they were legally entitled to. All of the boys at her school and men in her life lust after Monika who doesn’t want to give up her virginity until she meets the right suitor.

La Ragazzina, AKA Monika was co-written and directed by Mario Imperoli (he would next direct the Italian blockbuster Blue Jeans with Guida on his side once again) The screenplay for Monika was co-written by Arpad DeRiso who other notable screenplays include Hercules Against the Moon Men, Death Carries a Cane and Death Steps in the Dark. The score for Monika was composed by Nico Fidenco and it is reminiscent of the scores that he composed for the Black Emanuelle franchise that starred black beauty Laura Gemser. The Italian language title for Monika is “La Ragazzina”, which translates into “The teenie girl”.

So, what is Monika about?

The plot revolves around a young woman named Monika who is still a virgin as she approaches her sixteenth birthday(gee, first world problems!). Her grab happy boyfriend Leo time and again tries to pressure her into sleeping with him. Monika doesn’t want to give up her virginity to just anyone and she is willing to wait until she finds someone who "connects" with her on a more emotional level. Along the way the plot introduces two more suitors for Monika, her art teacher and one of her fathers’ business partners. It is with the art teacher that she finds the strongest connection, while her fathers’ business partner obsession far outgrows her residual interest in him.

Pimp &  Boyfriend.

Sunbathing.

The plot is clearly molded to exploit its star Gloria Guida in her first starring role and her more than abundant sex appeal. Even though Ornella Muti is the most prominent sex symbol to emerge out of Italian cinema in the 1970’s. Gloria Guida in many ways is on par with her popularity wise, at least in Italy. Some of Gloria Guida’s more notable films include, So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious…, The Teasers, To Be Twenty and Blue Jeans (in which she would re-team with director Mario Imperoli).

Director Mario Imperoli doesn’t waste a single chance to showcase his star Gloria Guida. Whether he has her running in slow motion on the beach or posing nude in front of the mirror where the camera like the men in the film fixates on Monika’s every move. Besides Gloria Guida’s superb performance as the naive Monika, other performances of note include Gianluigi Chirizzi (Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) in the role of Monika’s boyfriend Leo as sleazy character who also has a side job as a pimp and Paolo Carlini in the role of Massimo Moroni (Yes Moroni, like the mobster from Batman), one of her fathers’ business partners. Ultimately Monika works as well as it does because of the strong presence of its star Gloria Guida.

Tender flesh.

Am I sexy enough?

Gloria Guida, like many Italian starlets from the 70's has somehow been a "hard to find" talent outside Europe. Finding her films in official releases (DVD, Blu-Ray, you name it) it's really hard for those not living in the old continent. As a matter of fact, my reviews of her films (along with Ornella Muti's) are all based on dated European releases (the VHS kind or bootleg DVDs) since the NTSC versus PAL rule still pisses some video players off, plus awful dubbing, awful out of synch subtitles and no more cult video rental stores, God! cut me some slack, will you?

Anyways, the pain described in the previous paragraph it's not La Ragazzina's case since it had its official American release around 2009.

Italian Beauty.

In a nutshell, if you've never seen Gloria Guida in action, she was one of the most ubiquitous of an incredible crop of Italian actresses who came of age in the 1970's Golden Era of Italian exploitation film (including Ornella Muti, Jenny Tamburi, Eleanora Giorgi, Lili Karati and dozens of others who would never get kicked out of bed for eating soda crackers). She kind of resembled a young Brigitte Bardot or Barbara Bouchet. And I don't think she ever met a film role she wasn't willing to take all her clothes off for. This is not a very good movie (and it might not be much better, and could even be worse, with subtitles), but god knows I've suffered through much worse movies for the sake of taking another gander at the gorgeous GG. 

Here's a public domain version for your viewing pleasure, courtesy of YouTube: