PINOCCHIO (1971) ** ½

The softcore sex movie Pinocchio, more commonly referred to as, The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio, boasts what is probably the greatest tagline of all time:  “It’s Not His Nose That Grows!”  I mean who wouldn’t want to see THAT?  Sadly, the film struggles to come close to matching that great bit of marketing.  It’s almost as if the filmmakers came up with the tagline first and immediately went into catch-up mode trying to make the picture match the promise of the poster.

The Fairy Godmother (Dyanne Thorne from the Ilsa movies!) takes off her top before telling the tale of Pinocchio.  The lonely Gepetta (Monica Gayle) yearns for a man, so she makes one out of wood.  She names him Pinocchio (Alex Roman) and when sex with her wooden man doesn’t go as planned (Pinocchio is kind of a creepy mannequin that talks with a spooky disembodied voice), she wishes he’d become a real man.  Luckily, the Fairy Godmother was listening, and grants her wish, but on one condition:  Pinocchio doesn’t use his sexual prowess indiscriminately.  Before he can even make love to Gepetta, he’s led astray by a pimp named Mr. Gorgio (Eduardo Ranez) who turns him into an oversexed, overworked gigolo.  The only problem is that the more Pinocchio uses his giant member, the bigger his dick gets, which causes him all kinds of grief.   

Like its main character, Pinocchio is too good-natured and naïve to be down and dirty fun.  It’s also not funny enough to work as a comedy and not campy enough to work as a cult item.  Even though it kind of falls through the cracks, it remains watchable throughout.  

The film has decent production values for this sort of thing.  The costumes and sets were better than I was expecting.  If only the sex scenes were up to task.  The standout sequence is memorable for all the wrong reasons.  I’m talking of course about the part when Gepetta bangs the wooden, lifeless Pinocchio while tears well up in her eyes.  I guess we’ve seen many movies about guys with lifeless sex dolls, so a gender reversal is only fitting.  

Thorne is the best thing about the movie.  She has a funny running gag where she waves her wand and accidentally makes her clothes disappear.  She also kind of stands in as the Jiminy Cricket character too, acting as his conscience when he’s at a moral crossroads (and is promptly ignored).  The legendary Uschi Digart also shows up for a bit part dubbed by a man.  

The behind the scenes talent is somewhat interesting.  This was the feature directing debut for actor Corey Allen, who later went on to helm the disaster picture Avalanche and none other than Ray Dennis (The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) Steckler was the cinematographer.  Too bad the script (which was co-written by Allen) couldn’t live up to the tagline.

AKA:  The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio.