Recently I experienced my first encounter with the work of director Tinto Brass via 1992’s All Ladies Do It. This didn’t go well, as I thought Ladies offered little more than a collection of sex scenes in search of a plot.

However, it felt premature to judge a filmmaker based solely on one film. As such, I figured I’d given 1998’s Frivolous Lola a gander.

Set in rural Italy during the 1950s, young Lola (Anna Ammirati) gets engaged to local breadmaker Masetto (Max Parodi). She wants to lose her virginity prior to marriage, but he insists that she maintain that status, mainly because he wants to ensure he can check to make sure she doesn’t fool around with anyone else pre-nuptials.

This upsets Lola and she dumps Masetto so she can possibly embark on various sexual escapades. However, she still carries a torch for her ex-fiancé, one that impacts her decisions along the way.

The story of Frivolous differs from that of Ladies in many ways, but at their core, they seem pretty darned similar. In the latter, a young wife felt the need to fool around with people other than her husband.

Frivolous follows the same path, though it takes a much longer time to get to that point. Indeed, the “plot” delays development for a surprising span.

Going into Frivolous, I assumed that Lola would dump Masetto by the end of the first act. However, the audience must wait nearly an hour into the “story” before she finally gives him the boot.

I won’t reveal whether or not Lola actually fulfills her desire to get laid once this occurs, as I guess the possibility she’ll remain a virgin until marriage offers potential tension. Of course, we don’t know if Lola will eventually come back to Masetto anyway.

Whatever the case, the slow development of Lola’s sexual awakening ensures a nearly non-existent “narrative” gets stretched even thinner. This means a lot of nudity but not much actual sex.

Perhaps to compensate, Brass features many borderline gynecological images and even presents a close-up view of Lola as she urinates in public. As such, Frivolous doesn’t seem less explicit than Ladies - it just becomes explicit in different ways due to its essential absence of intercourse.

Though it wants to offer a light comedy at its heart, Frivolous makes one massive misstep: the decision to incorporate a semi-incestuous subplot. This bears no purpose in the overall “story” and just makes the film seem… icky.

Despite those creepy scenes, I will say that Frivolous proves more erotic than Ladies, mainly because Ammirati provides such a free spirit. While I think Claudia Koll of Ladies looks prettier, Ammirati just bursts with sexuality.

Indeed, Ammirati delivers such a frisky and open performance that she nearly makes this loose compilation of semi-pornographic scenes enjoyable. She seems utterly guileless and free, enough to make her a consistently compelling cinematic presence.

Unfortunately, Frivolous lacks narrative purpose, for it really does seem to exist as little more than softcore porn with a high-class sheen. I like it more than the tedious All Ladies Do It just because its leading lady proves so enticing, but the movie itself flops.

Note that this release provides the movie’s “Uncut and Uncensored” Director’s Cut. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate any information to indicate how it differs from the prior release. I think it just means we get the European cut vs. a more puritanical US edit, though.

Musical footnote: the movie’s theme song offers a blatant ripoff of Eddie Cochrane’s “Somethin’ Else”. Initially I thought the similarities might be coincidental, but given the film features similar songs like Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, I lean toward imitation.

Frivolous Lola appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie delivered a largely appealing image, though not a great one.

Definition usually sufficed. Delineation seemed good, if not exactly razor-sharp through the film, with a little softness in some wider shots.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects appeared, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural, and print flaws failed to manifest.

Colors leaned toward a warm amber/yellow vibe mixed with blues as well. The hues felt well-depicted given the cinematic choices.

Blacks appeared reasonably deep, but low-light shots could lean a little murky. Ultimately, the image worked fine, even if it never really impressed.

As for the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, it felt decidedly unambitious. Still, it opened up the spectrum a bit at times, as music spread to the sides well.

Effects broadened in a minor manner, so we got elements like bicycles and the like from the sides. A thunderstorm delivered decent used of the channels. Unfortunately, we also found some speech that bled awkwardly to the left or right as well.

Surrounds lacked much to do. If they offered more than general reinforcement of the front channels, I didn’t detect it, so this became a restrained soundscape – well, outside of that thunderstorm.

Like most Italian movies, Frivolous looped almost all its dialogue. To my surprise, a handful of lines actually used production recordings, however.

As heard here, these dubbing techniques improved over the decades. Nonetheless, in Frivolous, speech still felt canned and artificial through the film.

Lines remained intelligible, though they leaned a little edgy at times. Also, the aforementioned bleeding impacted quality in a slight manner.

Effects lacked much to do but still seemed pretty accurate, while music showed nice range and dimensionality. Nothing here impressed so expect a fairly blah soundtrack, though not a bad one.

Note that the disc also included an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in addition to the Italian one I discussed. Both seemed identical outside of the dialogue.

For the English version, speech felt even less natural and integrated worse into the film. Also, the English vocal performances seemed pretty terrible.

As we go to extras, we open with an audio commentary from film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific discussion of filmmaker Tinto Brass and where Frivolous fits into his career, cast and crew, some production elements, and their thoughts about the movie.

This turned into a largely engaging discussion of these topics. Ercolani and Howarth find more to appreciate in the film than I did, but they cover the domains well.

From 2004, we get an Interview with writer/director Tinto Brass. This chat lasts 25 minutes, 51 seconds.

Brass covers the movie’s roots and development, cast and crew, and various production domains. This doesn’t become the most concise chat, but Brass offers some useful notes.

A Still Photo Gallery offers 20 shots, all of which stem from the movie. These don’t stand out as memorable, even if we find some nudity.

The disc presents a selection of Tinto Brass Trailers. In addition to the promo for Frivolous, we find ads for All Ladies Do It, Paprika, PO Box Tinto Brass and Istintobrass. booklet that provides photos, ads, and an essay from Ercolani and Domenico Monetti. It finishes the package on a positive note.

Essentially devoid of plot, Frivolous Lola kept me with it solely due to the vivacious charms of its lead actor. As a movie, though, it lacks purpose and engagement. The Blu-ray brings generally positive picture and audio along with a few bonus materials. I enjoyed 105 minutes of an often-unclothed Anna Ammirati, but the film never offers anything more worthwhile than that.