Sadly Over-hyped

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

While walking in the park with her dog, Tina Brandt (Daniela Giodarno) is flirted by the playboy Gianni Prada (Brett Halsey) in his fancy sport car. They schedule a date for the night, and Tina dresses her elegant and expensive dress. They go to a night club to dance and Tina returns home late night. Her mother Sofia (Valeria Sabel) sees Tina sneaking with her dress torn apart and Tina tells that Gianni tried to rape her. On the next morning, Gianni tells a different story to his friend. Later, the doorman (Dick Randall) tells another version of the story. Last but not the least, the possible truth is disclosed. "Four Times That Night" is a surprisingly delightful and erotic romantic comedy of the master of horror and thriller Mario Bava. The plot brings an immediate association with "Rashômon", with four versions of the same story told by four different people. Daniela Giordano, the former Miss Italy 1966, is gorgeous, sexy and hot and it is delightful to see her wearing miniskirts or naked. In 1991, Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Bacon filmed "He Said, She Said" where they are reporters and give their perspective and opinion of the same event in a variation of this storyline. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available

Dashing playboy John Price (handsome Brett Halsey) meets sweet virgin Tina Brandt (ravishing brunette knockout Daniela Giordano, who was Miss Italy 1966) in a park. The two strike up an immediate rapport and go on a date which goes disastrously wrong. Depending on the person relating the incident, the date went down like this: 1) amorous cad Price attempted to rape the innocent Tina, 2) shameless and insatiable nymphomaniac slut Tina aggressively came on to the hapless John, or 3) Tina was seduced by predatory lesbian Esmeralda (a memorably spiky Pascale Petit). Director Mario Bava relates the amusing story at a constant quick pace and expertly maintains a playfully light and bouncy good-natured tone throughout. Antonio Rinaldi's crisp, polished cinematography fills the screen with lots of rich, vibrant colors while Cariolano Gori's frothy, groovy score totally hits the swinging spot. Moreover, this amiably silly and innocuous fluff further benefits from charming performances from attractive and personable leads Halsey and Giordano. Co-producer Dick Randall is a real hoot as the sleazy voyeur doorman. The delectable Brigitte Skay, the ill-fated skinny-dipper in "Bay of Blood," has a sexy bit as naive bimbo Mumu. Bava even manages amidst all the delightfully inane tomfoolery to make a relevant point about how individual perspectives radically vary from person to person. A cute little romp.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from a Bava sex comedy which, thankfully, emerged to be not quite as low-brow and vulgar as most genre offerings (which the Italians would soon make their own); for the record, Lucio Fulci also dabbled in the subgenre a few years later with the THE EROTICIST (1972), which has just been released on R1 DVD. Even so, the film also wasn’t particularly interesting per se, albeit a typically stylish effort from this director. As a matter of fact, despite being undeniably amusing in its RASHOMON (1950)-like multiple (and hugely contrasting) depiction of the central situation, it made for a rather tedious – and dated – whole! Anyway, the plot involves a young couple (Brett Halsey and Daniela Giordano) who meet by accident one day and then decide to go out together that night – which ends with the girl having her dress torn and the man with scratches on his forehead! Both of them then recount the way things went (she to her mother and he to his pals) – according to Giordano, Halsey tried to rape her; he, on the other hand, passes himself off as a shy person with the girl an insatiable vamp! A third version of events is told by the oversexed middle-aged concierge of the complex where Halsey lives, which sees the latter depicted as a homosexual who brought Giordano to his flat so that she could serve as partner for his lover’s lesbian companion. This is the funniest, but also campiest, part of the film – funny due to the banter between the concierge and his dumb listener and campy because of the stereotypical representation of the male gay lifestyle, though the women’s angle is treated with greater sensitivity)! The last interpretation is then offered by a psychiatrist which rather deliberately supplies the most innocent and, frankly, dull outcome possible for that fateful night – since the closing narration goes on to ask the audience whether they actually swallowed his ‘theory’! Despite having an American lead in Brett Halsey (who’s somewhat uneasy with the fluctuations in his character), the film really revolves around statuesque beauty Daniela Giordano (a former winner of the Miss Italy contest, no less). She looks confident in her various suggestive poses (this is easily Bava’s most explicit film with respect to nudity, though still pretty mild – there’s a similar hilarious contrivance to conceal private parts in bed as seen in DANGER: DIABOLIK [1968]!) but also demonstrates reasonable talent in her various facets of virtuous ingénue, sultry seductress, annoyed object of desire, etc.Accompanying the film is a lounge soundtrack all-too-typical of its era. Incidentally, there’s some confusion concerning the year in which the film was made – many give it as 1972, but the look and feel of it all simply spells 1960s to me and, in fact, it’s listed in other sources as 1969 (which I’m inclined to believe); others yet seem to concede that the latter is true but then report its actual date of release as late as 1976!! Interestingly, the print on display has the film split into two parts – where the title in Italian is actually given as QUATTRO VOLTE…QUELLA NOTTE (which fits the English translation, whereas the original QUANTE VOLTE…QUELLA NOTTE means HOW MANY TIMES THAT NIGHT!); strangely enough, just as the film goes into its second half, the audio level drops considerably! By the way, this proved to be the director’s first collaboration with producer Alfredo Leone (who eventually got hold of the rights to a sizable portion of Bava’s back catalog!).

It's ironic that Italian horror maestro Mario Bava might have made with this movie what is literally the best sex comedy ever. Not that that is saying a lot--American sex comedies generally range from awful to downright painful, and let's not even speak of British sex comedies. Italian and continental sex comedies are slightly better (but that may only be because they rarely bother to translate them to English so most of the lame jokes and wretched double entendres go over my head, and I just wait around for Edwige Fenech or whoever to take off her clothes again).Since it was directed by the famed Mario Bava,this movie has been translated into English, but it has an intelligent, conceptual humor that really requires no translation. It's a comic variation on the Japanese melodrama "Rashomon" where a first date between a man and a woman is told from the very different perspectives of him, her, and the doorman. Of course, being a comedy there is no rape and murder as in "Rashomon", but simply a torn dress and scratched forehead. Also, where "Rashomon" eventually resolves the differing accounts with an objective fourth story, the fourth story here is told by a blowhard pop psychologist and is at least as implausible as the other three. The message here seems to be that the truth itself is subjective, which makes this more akin to "Last Year at Marienbad" than "Rashomon" (although it's a lot more fun than either). It's also very subversive--the doorman, for instance, interrupts his obviously very fabricated tale (involving lesbianism and swingers) at the worst times to clean his glasses or go get a pair of binoculars (to the hilarious chagrin of the lecherous milkman he's telling the story to).The female lead is Daniela Giordano, a former Miss Italy. She was not nearly as ubiquitous in continental sex comedies as Edwige Fenech, but she's very memorable here. She is introduced to the audience bending over in a short skirt playing with her dog,"Coolie", so named she says because of his "coolie nose" (this is a joke people who only speak English might not get, but suffice it to say that Giordano has a really nice "coolie"). The male lead is Brett Halsey who appeared years later in several latter-day Lucio Fulci films. He's not quite as funny here, but at least this movie is SUPPOSED to be a comedy. Definitely recommended for Bava fans and non-Bava fans alike.