Fuego/The Female Ah, the sex kittens and goddesses of yesteryear. You've gotta love 'em. Monroe and Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren, of course. But how can we forget their heavy-breathing international sisters — Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Brigitte Bardot, Isabel Sarli.

OK, did we lose you on that last one? Don't fret, you're not alone.

Isabel Sarli may not have ever been a household name in America, but for Argentineans in the 1960s and '70s, she was the hottest star in the world. A former Miss Argentina, Sarli was discovered by a Svengali-like entrepreneur named Armando Bo, who molded her into a sultry sex symbol who slinked her way through a series of enormously popular movies, all directed by and costarring Bo himself (who was also Sarli's real-life lover and the only man Sarli allowed to actually touch her on screen).

Pop culture enthusiasts and global sexologists intrigued by Sarli could want no better introduction to the pride of Argentina than Something Weird/Image Entertainment's new Special Edition DVD of Fuego and The Female (Seventy Times Seven), two of Ms. S's more unique efforts. 1968's Fuego is a quintessential Sarli-Bo collaboration, featuring a wonderfully hysterical plot about an insatiable woman, tons of prurient behavior and an unforgettable title tune complete with mucho macho vocal by Carlos Alonso and roller-rink organ.

Sarli stars as a voluptuous nympho with too much of everything, from her big, big hair, to the layers of makeup and eyeliner to the cleavage virtually popping out of every insanely '60s outfit she wears. We're hooked from the first moment Sarli emerges buck naked, like a softcore Venus from the sea, striding up the beach to where her ferret-like lesbian maid waits, licking her lips in anticipation of toweling off her mistress.

Fuego is glorious, frequently surreal trash, a quasi-melodrama in which Sarli's character is tormented by her uncontrollable desires. She spends most of the movie rolling around in mock ecstasy, exposing her breasts and rubbing up against whatever's handy. With her droopy lids and bizarre body language, Sarli's attempts to simulate extreme passion often look more like a convulsing stroke victim or someone who's about to be sick. Her pillow talk consists of lines like What are you waiting for, you stupid idiot? and Towel me off. And each time she gets horny that incredibly cheesy theme song starts blaring.

The Female is one of the handful of Sarli movies not directed by Bo, and it couldn't be more different from Fuego. The Female has been described as an erotic spaghetti western, but it's really more like a South American Ingmar Bergman movie set out on the dusty plains. The movie is as self-consciously arty as Fuego is garish, with beautiful, imaginatively composed black-and-white cinematography and lots of meaningful footage of brooding characters silently glaring at one another. Atypically, The Female features Sarli's acting skills more so than her breasts, but the film still contains its share of lurid, sensationalist material, mostly set in a brothel filled with skanky, toe-sucking hookers.

The DVD features a digitally mastered, widescreen transfer of The Female — immaculate and breathtakingly sharp — and a colorful, but somewhat less pristine full-screen transfer of Fuego (believe me, it's nothing that will distract you from the movie's real charms).

As is often the case with Something Weird DVDs, the extras here are almost more entertaining than the movies themselves. We get a pair of outrageous South American shorts (both nightclub scenes featuring guys drooling into their highball glasses while watching mondo bizarro strip acts), a gallery of great sexploitation poster art and radio spots, and trailers for nearly a dozen other cellulite-filled Argentinean productions with titles like The Deadly Organ, Unsatisfied and the elegantly named Put Out or Shut Up.

It's all so insane that it seems to make perfect sense when the trailer for Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit turns up in the middle of it all. Perfect stuff for any party or for some late night scholarly reflection.

—Lance Goldenberg

This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2002.