All Ladies Do It (1992)

A rather different film from the other movies I have seen directed by Tinto Brass (namely SALON KITTY, CALIGULA and THE KEY), ALL LADIES DO IT sees the director in altogether a more playful mood, and the result is a more consistently enjoyable, entertaining, and occasionally delightful slice of EuroErotica than I have seen for some time. It also boasts a style all its own, as well as at least one scene of downright hilarity that doesn’t detract from the sexiness at all.
       Diana (Claudia Koll - that’s her and her bottom on the DVD cover) is married to Paolo (Paolo Lanza). They live in the kind of glossy apartment you only really see in European rip-offs of Adrian Lyne’s NINE AND A HALF WEEKS (and goodness me are there a lot of them). They have a reasonable marriage which is satisfying to Paolo but not so much so to Diana, who embarks on a series of sexual liaisons that she then tells Paolo about in detail. The thing is, Paolo thinks she is making the stories up to fuel their own bedroom fantasies, and when he finds out that’s not the case, he kicks her out. Will her written confession to a popular magazine in which she admits she loves Paolo above anyone else convince him to take her back? Or will she spend her days being passed from lover to lover?

It’s not all that important, actually, as from the tone of the opening scenes (and most definitely some of the later ones) this isn’t a film with any agenda other than to display its admittedly very attractive star naked as often as possible. True to the movie’s advertising, Ms Koll’s posterior is very much in evidence in many of the “more sophisticated” scenes, and Mr Brass is very obviously fascinated with that part of a woman’s anatomy. A simply priceless bit in the home of one of Diana’s conquests reveals that he is an artist who surrounds himself with paintings of ladies’ buttocks. He then goes on to deliver a lengthy diatribe on how a woman’s bottom is more honest than her face because it cannot lie. 

Unlike the other Tinto Brass movies I’ve listed above, the world of ALL LADIES DO IT is pure fantasy. The boutique where Diana works feels a little like something Federico Fellini might come up with if he was obsessed with fashionable ladies lingerie, whereas the few exterior shots of Venice that we get to see provide a striking contrast with the decidedly slinky but very period (ie 1980s-90s) fashions that  Diana gets to wear. Claudia Koll is very pretty indeed and carries her scenes well. I’ve not seen her in anything before and I understand she later dismissed her work in movies like this as being beneath her which is a shame as she’s really rather good in it.

I can’t honestly admit that the films of Tinto Brass are my kind of thing, but ALL LADIES DO IT certainly feels like an honest, sexy, playful movie from someone who just happens to enjoy the things he depicts in it. A lot.

Arrow’s Blu-ray is, like Claudia Koll, just beautiful, and like many of their other releases this really is the best way to watch this film. Both English and Italian dialogue tracks are available, with newly translated English subtitles if you fancy the Italian version. There’s also a trailer, a reversible sleeve, and an illustrated booklet featuring a well written and thoughtful essay on the movie by David Flint.