1001 Nights of Pleasure (1972)

There's nothing more I hate when it comes to movies than false advertising, and the cream of the crop has always been plastering some big actor or actresses face on a DVD cover with their name in big letters making it appear as if they were the star of the film.  Then it turns out they make a five minute cameo sixty minutes in.  While I'd probably watch the film anyways it would still be considerate to know ahead of time that I shouldn't be expecting the certain actor or actress to have much of a part in the inevitable pile of crap I'm about to watch.  And honestly if the marketing of a film is focused on a person who is barely in it, it's almost certainly going to be crap.

1001 Nights of Pleasure aka (Finalmente... le mille e una notte or Les mille et une nuits érotiques) is a film that not only advertises Barbara Bouchet as the lead star on posters and DVD covers but also gives her top billing in the opening credits; shockingly she doesn't make an appearance until about 3/4th's of the way through.  To describe this film quickly and bluntly it's simply pure sleaze, an Italian sex comedy with a lot of implied sex and not a whole lot of comedy, at least nothing I found very amusing.  The basic plot of the film is an Arabia sultan receives a new beautiful slave (played by the second and only other good looking woman in the film Femi Benussi) only to discover he's got a serious case of erectile dysfunction (wonder how many Google hits I'll get off of that!?!).  In an attempt to regain the use of his manhood he issues a proclamation for people in the city to tell him an erotic story, if they fail to arouse him they will be beheaded.

Unfortunatley for them their stories are far from erotic, I'd simply call them extremely stupid with a sexual bent.  Plus the only one I really gave a flying flip about was the second story featuring a brief appearance by Barbara Bouchet as Aladdin's mistress Mariam.  Mariam had been Aladdin's girl but somehow got mixed up with an old rich guy and married him, so Aladdin goes to the genie and procures an invisibility potion and a flying carpet.  Being invisible he's able to sneak into Mariam's room and tell her of his plan for them to be together on a nightly basis, which basically involves them doing it on the flying carpet and never getting caught by her cranky old husband.  The catch is the flying carpet will not land until the two people on it have made love three times in a row, which is fine with Aladdin concerning Mariam, but that catch soon leads to a rather awkward encounter at the end of the story.

Overall this story and other two were simply quite lame, most of the women were average looking (considering looks played a huge role in the stories), and the sole reason I bothered watching this in the first place ended up amounting to five minutes of Barbara Bouchet in a mediocre role.  Still considering the fact that Bouchet is blatantly marketed as the star of the film and wasn't anywhere close to it, 1001 Nights of Pleasure didn't end up being as horrible as I would have expected it to be had I known before hand that she was barely in it.  The set designs and costumes were quite good, and while pretty cheesy and lame the overall product wasn't sleep inducing.  Still that's no glowing endorsement, I doubt I'd ever revisit it again and certainly not the type of film I'd recommend.

Available on DVD

4/10