Camille 2000 (1969)
Article 5594 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-9-2018
Directed by Radley Metzger
Featuring Daniele Gaubert, Nino Castelnuovo, Eleanora Rosso Drago
Country: Italy
What it is: Sexed-up classic

A young man falls in love with the courtesan of a rich nobleman.

For the record, the Lentz guide lists this movie as genre, but the Walt Lee guide consigns it to the “Exclusions” list for movies lacking fantastic content. A viewing of the movie makes me give the point to Walt Lee, but I can’t really blame Lentz; we have a right to expect any movie made before the millennium change that ends with “2000” to be science fiction. And maybe it does take place in the year 2000; that might explain why some of the costume and set design choices are so bizarre (though my own belief is that some set and costume designers just like it that way). But there’s nothing in the script that specifies that it takes place in the future, and really, is there any reason to set this Dumas tale in the future when the present could work just as well? As for the movie itself, it’s an update of “Camille” that takes advantage of the new permissiveness in the cinema to add a bunch of softcore sex scenes to the mix. For all that, the movie is a straightforward telling of the story; it’s pretty to look at, but nothing special. And as for all of the sex scenes, I will fall back on my belief that one man’s erotic fantasy is another’s consummate silliness, and after the S&M D&S party scene, I found it hard to take the movie seriously anymore.