 Isabel Sarli is too hot to handle. 
Fuego is a movie from Argentina but we were so taken with this Japanese poster that we decided on it over the original promo art. The colors laid atop the black and white background are nice. As for the movie, which originally premiered in 1969 and reached Japan today in 1971, it's a bizarre sexploitation flick about Isabel Sarli and her servant Alba Mujica, who carry on a lustful lesbian affair while Sarli is simultaneously pursued by local alpha male Armando Bo. The triangle is complicated by the fact that Sarli has a little problem: she wants sex so much she doesn't care where, when, or from whom she gets it. The movie's theme song tells the story:
Fuego en tu boca, Fuego en tu cuerpo, Fuego en tu sangre, En tus entrañas, Que queman mi alma, Mi amor.
Fire in your mouth, Fire in your body, Fire in your blood, In your guts (eww), or alternatively, bowels (eew) That burns my soul, My love.
It's a good thing Sarli has fire in her blood, because she makes love in the snow. No blanket under her or anything. She's so overheated she goes around her provincial Patagonian town randomly flashing men. She's so inflamed she even squirms and moans when she sleeps. “I don't know if I'm fickle or wicked,” she muses. Her problem is neither. It's really that she's hostage to a cheeseball sexploitation script. She tells her suitor Bo she'll be unfaithful if they marry, but he doesn't care. “I want to be good,” Sarli says. Mission unaccomplished. As her doctor explains, her condition is caused by sexual neurosis. “A neurosis that is particularly manifested in the genitals.”
Okay then. It's unsurprising that the quack doctor next takes a comprehensive feel around Sarli's vagina. But no cure is to be found, there or anywhere, and her condition continues to consume her. Bo (who wrote and directed, as well as did most of the boob kissing) presents her narratively as an almost cursed figure, a kind of tragic sex goddess of the Andes. But even so, the movie is no more than a bad South American soap opera. Or really, even a classical opera—it needs only an aria to complete its ascent up majestic Mount Melodrama. Sarli is a legendary sex symbol in South America and she shows why, over and over, but in the final analysis we can't recommend Fuego. However, we doubt we'll ever forget it.
 Sarli does sexploitation with a South American flair. 
Isabel Sarli was a gigantic sex symbol in her home country of Argentina, and throughout Latin America as well, renowned for her boobs and smoldering ferocity. Furia infernal showcases both to great effect. She plays a dancer coveted by a rich pervert, who promptly kills her husband and kidnaps her to some snowswept mountainous retreat where sheep bleat continuously and everyone wears chaps and stubble. This all happens pretty quickly—within the first eight minutes of running time. After all, why delay when what everyone wants to see is how Sarli will use wits and tits to escape imprisonment? Both come in handy, and eventually Sarli's oily tormentor, his rugged but stupid sons, assorted henchmen and a sheep or two are deservedly dispatched. Sarli, as was her trademark, squeezes a few masturbatory nude frolics into all this melodrama, including one in a bath and another in a meadow. She was a throwback star. In an era when actresses were getting ever thinner she looked as if she could have used Marilyn Monroe as a toothpick. Her director and husband Armando Bo thought she looked best in nature, and he was right—she was as lush and dark as an old growth forest. We won't say Furia infernal is good, but Sarli certainly is. The movie premiered in Argentina today in 1973. 
 Isabel Sarli + water = success. 
This Japanese poster for the Argentine melodrama Intimidades de una cualquiera, aka Intimacies of a Prostitute, shows star Isabel Sarli in her natural state—naked in the water. Aquatic frolicking was her calling card, and any movie in which she didn’t do it was a disappointment. That would be especially true for Japanese viewers, because the retitle here is something like “underwater agony frenzy” and when you promise that you better deliver. Basic plot: woman named Maria leaves small town for big city, find herself in dire straits, resorts to the oldest profession, falls in love with client. Think of it as Pretty Woman with underwater agony frenzy (but not really, because that scene is actually pretty sedate). You can watch the entirety of the film, if you’re inclined, on You Tube here. By the way, here’s another bit of translative trivia for your Sunday: cualquiera is used for prostitute in Spanish speaking countries, but it literally means “whoever” or “anyone.” Interesting, no? Originally released in 1972, Intimidades de una cualquiera premiered in Japan today in 1974. See two more Sarli posters here.
 Argentinian firecracker was one of the first actresses to regularly perform nude.  
Isabel Sarli aka “La Coca” was born in 1935 in Argentina, and is one of the most beloved figures of sexploitation cinema. Sarli got into movies like many early actresses—by entering a beauty contest. When she won the title of Miss Argentina in 1955, softcore director Armando Bo took notice. He hired her and they went on to collaborate extensively over the years, eventually wedding each other. Sarli was described as the cleanest actress in Argentina because Bo loved filming her swimming nude in rivers and ponds. Though these scenes caused an uproar that resulted in the films being criticized and censored, the condemnation failed to stop Sarli from achieving widespread fame. You see two posters above—one for the 1976 Italian version of Insaciable, released as l’Insaciabile, and another promo released in Argentina around the same time. L’Insaciabile was one of Sarli’s last films.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping
Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice. 2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies
American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times. 1963—Profumo Denies Affair
In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament. 1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death
World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire. 2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies
Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War. |
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