Search - Monika on DVD

Gloria Guida's First Film

Daniel G. Lebryk | 08/19/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"1974, an interesting year for films. Monika or La Ragazzina, the story of a 16 year old Monika, confused about who she should sleep with for the first time. She has girl friends that sleep with anyone. Monika is not attracted to boys her age, but older men. Eventually she finds a man, does the deed, and the film is over. Oh there's a lot of images of Monika running at the beach, walking around with her top off, getting a medical exam with her top off, taking a bath with her top off, in general living life with her top off. If you imagined that this film is a vehicle to show Gloria Guida's very beautiful 19 year old (at the time of filming) breasts; well you probably guessed right. Although Colette Descombes, Moroni's wife, does a lot of the same, with almost as wonderful an effect.

The film is very typical of 1970's popular movies from Italy. Badly dubbed dialog. Very bad acting. The plot doesn't make a lot of sense. Very poor film making (a lot of out of focus shots). People speak way too fast and too much. And there are some stunningly beautiful women who make men do a lot of things for them.

This appears to be an historically important film. Gloria's first film. And, as was the custom then in Italy, women did not shave under their arms or the other areas; just their legs. So expect to see a bit of hair where you might not expect it today. She went on to have a fairly full career, taking her top off, in many more movies. She apparently had staying power in the popular sort of soft core movies of the 70's. She was and still is (head shot of her at 53 years old in 2008) a very beautiful woman.

The DVD, not much going on there. Play the movie and turn off or on the subtitles. Pick chapters. And view a video slideshow of pictures. What are the pictures of? You guessed it, Gloria and Colette with their tops off, and sometimes their bottoms; but they are never together in that pose.

Definately R rated. And definately not NC-17 by any stretch of the imagination. The coupling scenes are done artistically with no male nudity. No strong language, no violence, and no subversive political commentary.

This is a very poorly done movie that spotlights a very beautiful woman."

Appears to be CENSORED

E. M. Finney | Salt Lake City | 12/05/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"According to IMDB, this is supposed to be 93 minutes long. The region 2 version (La Ragazzina) is also 93 minutes long. This one clocks in at 82 min."