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Cheeky!
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Cult Epics Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (16th September 2024). |
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The Film
 In London on an internship, lithe Venetian blonde Carla (Ukranian model Yuliya Mayarchuk) realizes that she needs more private digs since her boyfriend Matteo (Jarno Berardi) is on his way to join her at the end of the school term. She patronizes an estate agency belonging to Moira (Frivolous Lola's Francesca Nunzi), but she is more interested in what Carla is not wearing under her skirt and gives her "preferential treatment" in the form of a ridiculously spacious loft along the Thames ("She's kind of lesbian-like and gets the hots," Carla explains to Matteo). During her free time, Carla goes to the spa with Moira for much nude and oiled groping, and attends a wild party hosted by Moira's Venetian ex-husband Mario (former soccer player Max Parodi) who finds some alone time with her in the bathroom. Back in Venice, Matteo stops by Carla's parents' home to pick up a pair of pink panties she asked him to bring along to London only to discover photographic evidence of her infidelity which he confronts her with when he arrives in town (and finds her in bed with Moira). Cheeky! is the popular English title for director Tinto Brass' "Tra(sgre)dire" tradire meaning "to betray" and trasgredire meaning "to transgress" although English prints of the film actually feature the title "Transgressing". With a resolution that mirrors All Ladies To It and actors carried over from Brass' prior film Frivolous Lola in which Parodi played the frustrated boyfriend, Nunzi a brothel prostitute, and Vittorio Attene as a similar horndog sidekick character as seen here Cheeky! feels a bit over-familiar as Brass moves away from stories about eroticism with explicit sex to more lighthearted and even more explicit erotica less concerned about hiding the comical artifice of the dildo "prosthetics" substituted for erections as the camera itself gynecologically probes his starlet's nether regions. Less busty (and rump-y) than some of Brass' starlets although she still gets the wide angle treatment when she bends over Mayarchuk makes for an appropriately impish and uninhibited nymph, first seen strolling through Hyde Park amused and delighted by expressions of sexuality on view capped off by her shocking surprise for a flasher. In addition to T&A, Nunzi provides humor and a hint of depth absent from the rest of the characters, although Brass' depiction of lesbianism is not particularly enlightened (Moira is a man-hater, and lesbianism in his other films is generally recreational). Cinematographer Massimo di Venanzo son of Fellini's DP of choice Gianni di Venanzo (Juliet of the Spirits) favors a sharper, less diffused look here than Brass' previous regular cinematographer Silvano Ippoliti who Di Venanzo the younger assisted Ippoliti on his last Brass films and would subsequently emulated his style on Frivolous Lola and The Voyeur, giving the film a candy colored mise-en-scene that combined with the sets of Carlo de Marino (Tea with Mussolini) would influence the look of Brass' subsequent films. Pino Donaggio (Dressed to Kill) provides a jaunty pop score that adds sax and electric guitar to his playful orchestra string section. Brass himself cameos as a Venetian photo processor who gets to grope Carla as they look over her vacation snaps. 
Video
Cheeky! hit DVD in Italy first from CVC with an anamorphic 1.73:1 transfer cropped from the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio (as stated in the end credits) with English and Italian 5.1 audio options (Cheeky! was an early Dolby Digital theatrical title). A slightly trimmed English-dubbed version with under the title "Transgressing" was shopped abroad and picked up by Arrow Films in the UK. The film was finally released stateside on DVD in 2006 by Cult Epics who sold the "Unrated, Uncensored Italian Version" and the trimmed export "Unrated English Version". Sourced from the same master as the Italian disc, these versions were once again cropped from the 1.66:1 aspect ratio (Filmexport disregarded the original aspect ratio to several of their 1.66:1 titles when they struck new anamorphic masters). Cult Epics initially released the film on Blu-ray in 2012 and later as part of the first Tinto Brass: Maestro of Erotica Cinema in 2014. Filmexport again disregarded the original aspect ratio with a 1.78:1 transfer that threw off the balance of long shots while close-ups occasionally looked invasive when they were not intending to probe the stars. Cult Epics' 4K revisit to the title as a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray also available as a 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray combo not only restores the framing but also reveals just how much de Venanzo emluated Ippoliti's work in terms of smoke and diffusion that was less evident on the earlier SD and HD masters due to noise reduction that left them looking more sharper but flat like something shot on film but intended for video. The 4K remaster reveals a wealth of lighting variations from the sometimes sweltering Venetian magic hour sequences with gels ranging from gold to rose while the London scenes make more use of warm backlighting with more of an emphasis on the saturated colors of the production design, particularly blues and reds. One wide-angle shot now betrays the use of a scrim, the weave of which would not have been visible with a longer focal-length lens. The 4K transfer is recommended as it better contends with the film grain and diffusion particularly under the titles and during the boating flashback while the contrasts look a bit hot in the highlights which is particularly noticeable during the daylight exteriors and some natural-light interior scenes. 
Audio
Like the Cult Epics DVDs, the 2012 Blu-ray featured only the Italian and English 2.0 stereo downmixes in lossy Dolby Digital. The new 4K restoration restores the 5.1 English and Italian mixes along with the 2.0 stereo downmixes in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio. The discrete surround mixes are conservative but give the music a bit more depth in the sound-field. The optional English subtitles reveal in some sequences how some exchanges that dealt with the language barrier had to be changed since everyone speaks unaccented English in the dubbed version. On the Italian track, Carla first speaks halting English to Moira asks if she is from Venice since her ex-husband speaks English the same way. On the English track, Moira instead asks Carla if she has allergies. When Carla asks why, Moira responds "It's obvious that going around wearing panties does bother you" (which, to be fair, does refer to a subsequent line of dialogue in the Italian version). 
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel Thompson who discuss how Brass' first film of the millennium marked a new direction. They note the influence of not only Brass' anthology film P.O. Box Tinto Brass but also his "Tinto Brass presents" video line of short films Corti Circuiti Erotici which featured short films from credited co-writers Nicolaj Pennestri whose short Sogno featured Mayarchuk and Mauro Lorenz Silvia Rossi who also appeared onscreen in Brass' subsequent anthology Fallo!, and Massimiliano Zanin who would also co-write Fallo! and Monamour as well as directing the Brass documentary istintobrass? and the more recent Joe D'Amato documentary Inferno Rosso: Joe D'Amato on the Road of Excess. Ercolani notes the presence of some cast members from the short films and Thompson compares the episodic structure of the film to the shorts (suggesting that the beach vignette with Mayarchuk and Lorenz plays like one of the shorts). They also discuss the explicit content and how Brass might have been competing with the hardcore market, as well as how his attitude about hardcore changed from the early nineties to potential interest in directing a porn film while also criticizing hardcore directors for not being more artistic (with Thompson noting D'Amato as the exception with his comparatively lavish direct-to-video feature films). They also note that Mayarchuk was not the typical Brass starlet and suggest that that might have had to do with the Italian male gaze's shift from Mediterranean beauties to Eastern European blondes in the nineties due not only to their presence as models and television presenters in Italy but also the Italian laws that made pornography legal to distribute in Italy but not to produce there (meaning that a lot of Italian porn producers set up production in Eastern European countries). Ported from the earlier editions is "Backstage" (8:18) in which Brass waxes on betrayal as "the most exciting of transgressions", how one can "discover women's lies by looking at their asses" (in fact he'd expresses an interest in doing a television show where he could read asses called "Not Just Mona" Mona being Venetian slang for a woman's genitals). He discusses casting Mayarchuk and the difficulty lesbian sex onscreen. Much of this is heard over behind the scenes video from the spa sequence.  Also new to this release is "Brassgressions and Other Diversions" (37:49), an interview with cinematographer de Venanzo who notes that his career started after his father's death when his mother got in touch with his father's associates. He discusses his early days as a camera assistant and points out cinematographers Ippoliti, Giuseppe Rotunno (The Stendhal Syndrome), and Carlo di Palma (Blow-up) as his mentors who taught him both theory and experimentation as well as his work with directors like Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Lina Wertmόller, and Bernardo Bertolucci. When Di Palma went to America to work with Woody Allen, he was not allowed to bring his Italian crew with him which lead to him assisting Ippoliti on Paprika on which he reveals he replaced Ippoliti as cinematogrpaher and then left him instructions on shooting All Ladies Do It!. He describes The Voyeur as his most beautiful and experimental Brass film but has little to say about Cheeky! or Senso '45 but he does note how much time he and Brass experimented with equipment, focused on lighting the female stars even during auditions, and the challenge of letting Brass operate his own camera when he sometimes focused on things within the shot other than the actors. Although there has not been a CD soundtrack, the disc includes the entire isolated score (18 tracks, 41:17) in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 including the film's uncredited songs, as well as a still gallery (1:45). Closing out the disc are Tinto Brass trailers including Cheeky (3:24) along with teaser for Cheeky (1:20), Frivolous Lola (2:17), All Ladies Do It! (3:21), Paprika (1:11), P.O. Box Tinto Brass (1:05), and the documentary istintobrass? (4:13). 
Packaging
The first pressing includes a slipcover, reversible cover, four reproduction Italian lobby cards, and a 20-page booklet by Eugenio Ercolani and Domenico Monetti which provides some more information on the reception of the film including threats by a right-wing party to deface the poster Mayarchuk's reaction to the film and her career (along with the Brass' short in which she appeared), and the film in the context of the other side of his "pink period." Note that the 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray combo first pressing includes these along with four lobby card reproductions.
Overall
Tinto Brass gets Cheeky! in bringing his philosophy of "happy banging" into the new millennium.
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