Cathy Rosier in Love by Appointment (1976)

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If you look up strange in the dictionary, it says See Love By Appointment. It is, I think, an Italian made-for-late-night-cable, featuring Ernest Borgnine and Robert Alda. Right off the bat, Borgnine in a softcore porno is strange. (Some would argue that Borgnine is strange all by himself.) The film has five listed titles, no release information, and is still awaiting 5 votes at IMDB.

1) Love By Appointment
2) Natale in casa d'appuntamento
3) Christmas Time in a Brothel
4) Christmas at the Brothel
5) Holiday Hookers

I would definitely call more titles than releases or reviewers strange.

The strangest thing about it, however, is that all the on-line plot descriptions I could find were based on the information on the DVD box, which happens to be wrong -- very wrong. IMDB says comedy, and most plot summaries call it a comedy, where Borgnine and Alda are American businessmen in Europe who get into trouble spending all of their time in a high class bordello.

The film is actually a character driven drama about a madam and three of her girls. Her most popular girl, played by Sylvia Dionesio, has a day job in a clothing store, goes for a weekend with Borgnine who has a heart attack before they can have sex, then quits the life and gets married. Borgnine has fallen in love with her, and wanted to marry her.

The second girl actually works without pay, only once per trick, as her husband is impotent. They feel that if she only has sex once with each trick, it is not really cheating. I was not able to identify this actress. The third is a young wife and mother (Corinne Clery of Story of O fame) who lives in the same apartment as the bordello, and is lured into the life by the madam.

The madam has decided to retire and run off with her true love on Christmas day. She offers to get Clery another gig. The new madam, who I also could not identify, is a cheap vulgar woman who inspects and insults Clery. If you can identify the Unknown or the madam, please let me know. I really don't know how to rate this one.

The story is too strong to dismiss it as a "tittie flick," but it has a lot of breast exposure. The acting was good, as was the photography and art direction.

DVD Info: The DVD transfer was done by Image Entertainment, and they did their usual wonderful job. There are no special features at all on the DVD. I will have to resort to the Scoopy report card rating system here. If you like tittie flicks and/or Eurotrash, you will enjoy this one, so it is somewhere between B- and C+.

Written by: Tuna ...courtesy of Scoopy.net