Profumo di Donna (Scent of a Woman)

If you've seen the 1992 sanitized Hollywood rendition of Scent of a Woman (starring Al Pacino), you owe it to yourself to catch the Italian award-winning 1974 original: a poignant, fleshy romp, thickly coated with sex. Fausto, a blind, ex-military commander, enlists Ciccio, a teen-ager completing his military duty, to care for him on a week-long tour of Italy's most well-known cities and ports-of-call--each one a haven for beauties. The relationship gets off to a rocky start, but soon Ciccio learns to cope with Fausto's idiosyncrasies and his "manly" ways, and the pair develop an intimate and unique rapport. The grande tour ends in Naples, where Fausto settles a long-standing score and winds up confronting an old love. Vittorio Gassman, who stars as the vinegary Fausto, tackles the role with convincing vim and vigor, playing to perfection a blind man with a lusty gaze and wayward sense of smell. Lively pacing, thoroughly quirky and charming characters and wonderful scripting, all add up to a winning film which proves that love (and lust) can be blind. Recommended. (A. Glover)[DVD Review—Feb. 16, 2009—Hen's Tooth, 99 min., in Italian w/English subtitles, R, $24.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD, 1974's Profumo di Donna features a nice transfer. DVD extras include the original trailer. Bottom line: a solid Italian dramedy makes a welcome debut on DVD.]