Anyone with WIDESCREEN out there???

Does anyone own a widescreen copy of this outrageous trash-traveganza?

After years of adoring Carroll Baker in films like HARLOW and BABY DOLL, I recently went on a spree of renting Baker-related films, of which PARANOIA (ORGASMO) was one. The shoddy VHS which I rented simply can not do this ludicrous film justice. It's a landmark in the career of Carroll Baker since it is clearly rated "X" in the pre-credit rating footage, and it's a cheap thrill just to see the rating itself flashed up on-screen!

What follows is one of the giddiest, trashiest, most perverse Euro (s)extravaganzas I've ever seen. Only Argentina's FUEGO can top this for tawdry titillation (and even features, similiarly, a stern, lizard-like maidservant in the form of Theresa).

Carroll Baker beds down not only with a hunky Italian gigilo, but also his "sister", dons a tacky black wig in a bid for restored youth, and boozes it up as she vamps around a gorgeous Italian villa. Baker even did her own stunt falling down a flight of stairs (hat's off to her for that!). The dialogue is stilted and silly, Baker's performance is both icily cold and earnestly lewd as she vacillates back and forth from repressed widow to "tramp".

Today we take for granted women of any age who are sexually demonstrative (think DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES). But this film is both shocking (and slightly nostaglic) for showing the (then unheard-of) "middle-aged" woman as being sexually aggressive in a time when it would have been utterly embarrassing and in poor taste.

This is a film which devotees really MUST lobby for on DVD, particularly in a widescreen format since all too often the action winds up off-camera in a pan/scan version.

If anyone knows of a bootleg, please contact me. In the meantime, I suppose we'll just have to hope some distribution company in Europe comes to its senses and releases a nice print of this film to DVD.