Raised by a band of gypsies called the Devils, beautiful Isabella (Brigitte Skay) learns how to fight with a sword and ride a horse as well as any man. When Isabella comes of age, a chance encounter leads to her discovering she is of noble birth and that the villainous Baron Von Nutter (Mimmo Palmara) - crazy name, crazy guy - killed both her parents before stealing their land. A kindly countess shelters Isabella at her court where she falls for dashingly handsome Gilbert de Villancourt (Fred Williams). Repressed memories of the tragic past stop Isabella from giving in to her feelings while a narrow escape after sharing a bubble bath with a lesbian assassin leads her to seek revenge on the Baron. Disguising herself as a gypsy prostitute, she seduces Von Nutter with a topless Arabian-style dance, only to disfigure his face in the throes of lovemaking, forcing him to don an iron mask. Captured before she can escape, Isabella endures terrible torture but strikes a bargain with the Baron’s treacherous younger brother, Kurt (Thomas Astan), to hatch her riskiest plan yet.
Isabella, duchesse dei diavoli or Isabella, Duchess of the Devils was Italy’s first erotic comic book series. Created in 1966 by prolific fumetti artist Alessandro Angiolini, the series was in part a parody of the Angélique novels penned by French authors Serge and Anne Golon. These historical romances were also adapted for the screen beginning with Angelique (1964) starring Michèle Mercier which spawned four sequels hugely popular across Europe though little known elsewhere. It is likely their success led to Isabella - released stateside as Ms. Stiletto - getting the chance to swash her buckle and more besides at the cinema, though the film also fits into Italy’s short-lived vogue for sexy swashbucklers: e.g. Ruggero Deodato’s similarly saucy Zenabel (1969).
While the basic plot of Isabella was none too different from your average zesty sword-swinging romp penned by Alexandre Dumas, Angiolini spiced things with the inclusion of heady sado-erotic overtones. Isabella had an alarming penchant for being bound captive, whipped or otherwise abused whilst in a state of undress. Fortunately she always broke free to drive a sword through her tormentors, but the frequency with which she was ritually bound and humiliated for the sake of cheap titillation stirred no small amount of scandal in the Italian press. Later fumetti serials such as Zora la vampira and Angiolini’s own Belzeba pushed the envelope even further into outright pornography, but that is a whole other story.
Adapting this salacious swashbuckler for the cinema, director Bruno Corbucci, brother and frequent collaborator of the more famous Sergio Corbucci, includes all the S&M action and gratuitous nudity one would expect yet does so without rubbing our noses in virulent misogyny, maintaining a surprisingly light-hearted, dare one say, even charming tone. Scenes such as when Von Nutter challenges an African slave to remain impassive whilst a beautiful naked duchess nuzzles his nether regions or when Diego (Sal Borgese) cavorts with a lovely gypsy girl in a vat of flour prove playful rather than mean-spirited. Corbucci also dials down the sadism on Isabella’s torture scenes, underlining instead how whereas a hero’s toughness is measured by how much violence he can dole out, a heroine’s strength is valued by how much she can endure. Which is not to excuse the torture scenes, merely place them in context. Besides, Isabella is an exploitation film. Complaining about gratuitous sex and sadism while watching an exploitation film is like going to a steakhouse and complaining about the meat-only menu.
Unlike other Italian exploitation filmmakers from this period, Corbucci brings little in the way of visual flair to proceedings, seemingly content just to point his camera at the sumptuous scenery, be that the impressive castle grounds or voluptuous Brigitte Skay. Nevertheless, the action is well paced and involving, and layered with a disarming degree of sensitivity. In an interesting psychological subtext almost reminiscent of Marnie (1964), Isabella’s memory of cowering as a little girl while Von Nutter molested then murdered her mother cause her to recoil from physical intimacy. Her sexual dysfunction is inevitably resolved in a sensual slow-motion yet unusually affecting love scene towards the finale.
Brigitte Skay ably embodies the gutsy Isabella. While obviously cast for her beauty and willingness to doff her duds for the saucy scenes, she went the extra mile in bringing a great deal of spirit and emotion. It is a shame she remains largely known as the skinny-dipping girl who gets a machete in her neck in Mario Bava’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971). Isabella’s ingenuity enables her to entrap her enemy in an unpredictable way, though the twist ending sets up a sequel that sadly never arrived.
Italian director who worked in most genres over a forty year career, Corbucci is best known for the Nico Giraldi series of police thrillers, starring Tomas Milian and starting with 1976's Cop in Blue Jeans. Also wrote or co-wrote over 120 films, the most notable of which was Django, directed by his brother Sergio Corbucci.
