The Venice Film Festival is providing a little erotic tease ahead of its official program, screening Italian softcore thriller Deadly Sweet in its pre-opening slot ahead of this year’s event.
The 1967 feature, from erotic movie veteran Tinto Brass, features French star Jean-Louis Trintignant and Sweden’s Ewa Aulin in a London-set crime plot. With plenty of sex.
Deadly Sweet premiered in an out-of-competition slot in Venice in 1967. A new, digital 4K version will screen on the Lido September 1, ahead of the festival’s official opening night and will be included in the Venice Classics program. Venice typically picks a newly restored film for its pre-premiere screening. Last year, it showed a new 4K version of Erich von Stroheim’s 1929 silent masterpiece Queen Kelly.
Brass is best-known for his 1979 feature Caligula, an erotic period epic about the notorious Roman emperor, adapted from a screenplay written by Gore Vidal and starring Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud. The film was notorious at the time, not just for its graphic scenes but for the internal battle between the film team and the movie’s financier, Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. Guccione took control of the final cut of the movie, making significant changes to the original release, including adding unsimulated sex scenes. Brass and Vidal sued to have their names removed from the picture. A restored version, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, was released in 2023 and presented at the Cannes Film Festival.
The 84th Venice Film Festival will run Sept. 2-12. The festival will unveil its official lineup on July 23.
