Daniela (Gloria Guida), a teenage hooker who adopts the nickname 'Blue Jeans' on account of her bum-hugging hot-pants, gets caught turning tricks by the cops. To escape jail Daniela claims to be the long-lost daughter of Dr. Carlo Anselmi (Paolo Carlini), a prominent art restorer who lives in an old castle in the countryside. Although Anselmi vehemently denies being Daniela's father, the magistrate takes the seventeen year old nymphet at her word. He entrusts her to Anselmi's care. Inevitably Daniela's pulchritrudinous presence puts a cramp in Anselmi's love life with his live-in mistress Marisa (Annie Carol Edel). Hilarity ensues as her prick-teasing antics ruffle the stuffy neighbours, causing no end of calamity for dear old 'dad.'
Keeping it classy from the get-go, this saucy Italian sex comedy opens with a cheeky close-up on Gloria Guida's barely denim-clad derriere. Nico Fidenco's cheesy Seventies Euro-pop theme song is basically an ode to her ass ("You're a cheeky girl. You swing your hips. Ooohhh!") Former Miss Teen Italy Gloria Guida was one of the three pillars (oo-er, missus) of Italian sexploitation along with Edwige Fenech and Barbara Bouchet. While the latter embodied a range of soft-core fantasy figures (i.e. naughty nurse, horny housewife, etc.) Guida specialized in sexy schoolgirls: a more problematic archetype for modern sensibilities that was nonetheless omnipresent throughout the free-wheeling Seventies. Depending on one's point of view it is either a relief or else even more salacious the then-twenty year old voluptuous beauty was never convincing as a minor. Films like Under-Graduate Girls (1975) and How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979) are typical examples of Gloria's output. Yet she proved she could act in Silvio Amadio's strangely poetic So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious (1975) and Fernando Di Leo's finger-wagging (among other body parts) To Be Twenty (1978) prior to retiring from the screen in the mid-Eighties after marrying Italian singer and actor Johnny Dorelli. More recently she made a comeback as a character actress on Italian television.
As comedies go the laughs are pretty thin in Blue Jeans. Which is part due to Mario Imperioli's somnambulant pacing. Long stretches of screen-time simply follow characters traipsing around the picturesque provincial town: savouring the lovely scenery, Medieval architecture and the local food festival. Imperioli, who directed Gloria Guida's first film La Ragazzina (1974) a.k.a. Monika, takes a mild stab at making Daniela a counter-cultural figure exposing Anselmi's bourgeois hypocrisy. He berates her as a hussy but hypocritically sleeps with his mistress while waiting for his divorce to be finalized (which takes far longer in Catholic Italy). The plot also stirs in a perverse semi-incest angle. Anselmi's lecherous lawyer Mauro (Mario Pisu) is of the opinion fate has thrown this hot young thing Anselmi's way. Why not enjoy himself? Initially Anselmi is aghast at the idea. But, hey, Daniela is clearly not his daughter, so...
Like many Italian sexploitation films, Blue Jeans reflects the strange psychological makeup of Seventies Europe. Torn between an unsavoury tradition of leering misogyny, post-Sixties sexual liberation and old fashioned Catholic guilt. For the most part though the film is really about contriving ridiculous excuses for Gloria Guida to bend over. Then out of nowhere the third act takes a sharp left turn into thriller territory with the arrival of a mysterious mute drifter named Sergio (Gianluigi Chirizzi). He it turns out has a personal connection to Daniela. Suddenly our hitherto happy-go-lucky heroine is drawn into a giallo-like murder plot. This sudden twist lends Blue Jeans an intriguing dark dimension that leads to a surprisingly affecting denouement that almost redeems the lacklustre first two thirds.
