Director: Giuliano Carnimeo
Producer: Luciano Martino
Music: Luciano Michelini
Screenplay: Ernesto Gastaldi
Starring: Edwige Fenech, Corrado Pani, Richard Conte, Ettore Manni, John Richardson, Bruno Corazzari, Umberto Raho.
Edwige Fenech (Case of the Bloody Iris, Strip Nude for Your Killer) stars in this Italian crime drama, as Anna, a young woman who works in a cafe and is obviously not happy with how her life is turning out. She still lives with her parents and is unimpressed with the pathetic men who attempt to hit on her in the cafe. But her life suddenly changes when a mobster, named Guido (Corrado Pani), enters the cafe to use the phone. When their eyes meet there is an instant connection. When Anna leaves work that evening Guido is waiting for her outside and walks her home and the sexual tension between them quickly builds.
Even though Guido alludes to the fact that he isn’t the most savory of characters, Anna is drawn to the contrast that Guido represents to her current life, and even when he hits her she takes it in her stride. But when they are in a hotel lounge and Guido meets a female acquaintance he ignores Anna while he talks to her. Anna is furious. When he finally brings the woman over to introduce her to Anna, Anna storms off and Guido goes after her in his car. When he catches up with her and is done hitting her, he warns her that maybe she should leave before it’s too late. She gets out of the car and leaves, and so her life goes back to normal, and it’s apparent that Anna is not happy with this.
When a friend from Rome arrives, Anna is given a temporary reprieve from her dissatisfaction, but as she tells her friend about Guido she reveals she is fearful she won’t see him again. But as the days pass from his departure, as suddenly as Guido disappeared from her life, he returns. After Anna’s friend returns to Rome, Guido enters the cafe again and arranges a date, he takes her to his apartment and they consummate the reunion.
On a Saturday night when Guido fails to show up to pick her up for a date she walks to the apartment to find him. When she enters the apartment there is a poker game going on in the back room, and he comes out and informs her that business comes first, but offers to take her to Milan with him.
Anna is finally being given the opportunity she has sought, to escape from her mundane life. But life in Milan isn’t quite what this young naive woman is expecting. It’s begins happily enough. Guido is showering her with money and gifts and everything is going as well as she could hope, but it’s not long before she is dragged into his life of crime. When a drug smuggling operation to Switzerland is thwarted, Guido boss suggests Anna as a substitute carrier for the drugs, and Guido agrees. When the operation doesn’t quite go as planned Anna is exposed to the ruthlessness of Guido’s lifestyle when she witnesses him killing a man in cold blood.
Things just keep getting worse though, as Guido is forced to prove his control of Anna to his boss. Anna is drawn even further into the folds of the crime organization, as with the other women, she is forced to become a pawn to the men around her. So begins her life as a prostitute, as she is forced to bed powerful men for great sums of money for Guido’s boss.
When Anna suddenly reveals she is pregnant, Guido is adamant that she get an abortion. Anna narrowly escapes this fate when the police show up to arrest Guido for an outstanding warrant, and so she manages to escapes to her friends place in Rome where she goes to raise her child.
Just as Anna’s life takes a turn for the better, Guido shows up. Anna was just beginning to settle down with her new love, a doctor she met when he saved the life of her son after he had difficulty breathing, and that doctor was quickly becoming the father the child never had. But after having spend time in prison Guido was finally released and he’s turned up looking for Anna, to bring her back to her own submissive life. He forces her to go to Milan with him, leaving her son and boyfriend behind. But Anna is not the same woman she once was, and is no longer a lap dog to his whims. It is now up to Anna to take her own life into her own hands, and break free from Guido’s grip no matter the costs.
Secrets of a Call Girl is not as lurid as the title suggests, and is actually a very respectable European crime drama. Although the actual crime aspect of the film is second to the relationship of Anna and Guido, which is just as well, because the mobster part of the story is a little confusing at times. It’s always interesting watching these 70′s Eurocult classics, because they really show a glimpse of the period. These days you’d be hard pressed to see a woman who’d hang out with a guy that’s hitting her on the first or second date, even in cinema, but here it seems to be an accepted practice. Billed as a crime movie, Secrets seems to be more of a story about a woman overcoming the oppression of man, than anything else, which is actually quite a rare message for this kind of film. Usually women, as the title of the film suggests, are there for decoration, and this one still has that kind of element, but it says something more too.
