Eurostarlets #27: Ornella Mutti

Pretty and sweet Ornella Muti on the cover of the July 1972 issue of vintage magazine Ciné-Revue. As often with the covers of this magazine, the photographs used may be of an earlier date. Here Ornella looks a lot younger (and has a lot more baby fat), so I figure this is taken somewhere in the later 1960s. Ornella Muti is best known to genre fans for her part in Umberto Lenzi's 1971 giallo, Un Posto Ideale per Uccidere, where, incidentally, she was doubled by eurostarlet Antonia Santilli. You can find a post on Antonia here.

Not unlike several fellow Eurostarlets and stars, she appeared, under her real name Francesca Romana Rivelli, in a series of Fotoromanzi between 1969 and 1971 for Italian publishing house Lancio. Her sister Claudia Rivelli also 'acted' in these photonovels, but appears to have only one movie credit, Nando Cicero's Eurowestern, Due Volte Giuda, where she appeares opposite Klaus Kinski and interminably cute Cristina Galbo.

Images from the Fotoromanzi are from fotoromanzi-topilio.it. Check out the site if you are interested in the Lancio photonovels.

Eurostarlets #25: Marina Giordana

Lovely Marina Giordana on the cover of the August 1978 issue of vintage magazine, Ciné-Revue. Giordana is best known for playing Carla Santini in Sergio Grieco's wonderfully sleazy and violent La Belva col Mitra (Beast with a Gun - 1977), where she appeared opposite Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger (with whom she lived for a while in Rome). She also appeared in Mario Imperoli's obscure Quella Strana Voglia d'Amare (1977). However, she soon abandoned her film career to 'act' in numerous Fotoromanzi for publishing house Lancio, appearing in 90 of them between 1976 and 1981.

She also graced the cover of Italian Playboy (Februari 1979) and is featured in an extensive pictorial, 'Sorella d'Arte' in Playmen (Italy - April 1976). Both her brothers, Andrea and Carlo pursued acting careers. In 1968, Andrea played Johnny Hamlet (Hamilton) in Enzo G. Castellari's Quella Sporca Storia nel West (Johnny Hamlet).

Nudity and Eroticism in the Eurowestern #004

Continental Film Review image from the 1971 Una Pistola per Cento Croci! (Gunman of One Hundred Crosses), with some sadistical violence and nudity. Not surprisingly the movie is directed by Carlo Croccolo, whose Black Killer also contains ample displays of naked flesh. There is also an Italian Fotoromanzo of the film which contains this whipping sequence.

Women in Prison (s)exploitation

Some panels from the French Photonovel of Rino di Silvestro's sleazy 1974 Diario Segreto da un Carcere Femminile (Women in Cell Block 7), featuring a veritable bevy of eurostarlets: Anita Strindberg, Eva Czemerys, Luciana della Robia (Jenny Tamburi), Christina Gaioni, Gabriella Giorgelli, Olga Bisera, Paola Senatore and Annie Carol Edel. A luridly entertaining mixture of sex and violence, all the requisite elements are present with the lesbian encounters, the shower sequence, the examination and various elements of sadistic and sleazy violence...

Eurostarlets #002: Cristina Galbo

Panels from the French "Roman Foto" in the Star-Ciné Bravoure series, featuring the 1967, Gianni Puccini directed Eurowestern, Dove si Spara di Piu. Peter Lee Lawrence stars alongside the excrutiatingly lovely Cristina Galbo. The tale is sort of a "Romeo and Juliet" in the West, as two families are at each others throats for generation until the son of one family falls in love with the daughter of the enemy...