The 1987 Italian equivalent of the type of late night TV fare certain cable networks would later capitalize on in America, recently released to DVD here with the silly moniker Top Model, the film stars French beauty Florence Guérin as a fashion photographer who, as the story opens, is taken from behind by an unknown friendly (?) stranger in a private train cabin.But as to whether or not this encounter was fantasy or reality is something Mario bello feel no need to immediately reveal. Instead, Ms. Guérin travels to the palatial home of a rich businessman (Marino Masé, the hilarious cop from Luigi Cozzi’s epic Alien cash-in, Contamination), where she requests the wealthy man and his wife (Martine Brochard) permit her to host a photo shoot for attractive young women (including Geretta Geretta) in their underwear (and less). Needless to say, our benefactor agrees immediately, but asks the photographer to stay behind when the deed is done to engage in another deed: a game of chess, wherein for each capture, the loser of said loss is required to perform an act for the other. Heck, had I been given the opportunity to play this particular system of the game, I would be headlining in my own demented production of Chess by now!Alas, in this instance, there’s much more afoot than anyone wants to let us in on. And while some of the film’s ideas of sensuality would be wholly out of place even in a hardcore variant (Marino takes a clay molds of Florence’s breast and promptly pours champagne into it!), the twists and turns of this erotic thriller sometimes seem too forced or too foreseeable, the endgame [ta-dum] does offer up a fun play. Plus, we get to see Ms. Guérin shed all of her clothing on a regular basis (all of the glorious minge benefits included).
