To Be Twenty (1978 Fernando Di Leo)
"Well, I'm young, hot and pissed off!"
Stunning Italian sexpot and a firm-bottomed WorldWideGimp favourite Gloria Guida stars alongside fellow beauty Lilli Carati in Avere Vent'anni (To Be Twenty). It's an odd soft-porn-slash-exploitation film about two VERY beautiful young women who are desperate to celebrate their immense sexual powers by humping as many people as possible.
The two stunners hitchhike to Rome to live in a hippy commune. As expected, random chaos ensues as the two randy love-birds meet up with (and occasionally mate with) hippies, junkies, drop-outs and flower-power believing freaks. Eventually the police turn up to the commune and, after multiple arrests, the two girls are ordered back to their home town, only to run into trouble along the way...
Di Leo's 1978 oddity was a disaster when it was released, and the producers re-cut the film toning down the nudity and violence and then re-releasing it. The bizarre, truncated mess that was re-released also flopped, as audiences decided they hated both versions of the film! A shame really, as Guida & Carati were stars at the time, and considering the fluff they were in prior to this film, their performances are surprisingly good!
The re-edited version cut around 13 minutes of footage (!) and re-dubbed some scenes in order to change the story. After seeing both versions on this botched Blu-ray release, you realize what a piss-poor effort the edited version actually is.
In 2018, Raro video issued To Be Twenty on Blu-ray, and it includes both cuts. Unfortunately, the original director's cut (that's the version everybody wants to see) is an old SD presentation dumped on the disc as an extra. The crappy edited version of To Be Twenty, the version nobody wants to see, is presented in what is reported to be a new HD transfer. Raro have missed a fantastic opportunity here, and should have included BOTH versions in HD from new transfers. They fucked up big time, which is no surprise given their already terrible reputation.
That said, Gloria Guida is a Worldwidegimp favourite, and seeing Guida's lovely bottom in HD is a real sight to behold! However her best scenes, and that bizarre apocalyptic ending, are only on the director's cut. Shame.
I'd like to see more Guida released on HD, but I really think that we won't see the directors cut of To Be Twenty in HD anytime in the future, and if RARO video pick up all the rights for Guida's films, then we are truly fucked! Not that anybody is going to buy To Be Twenty after this fiasco. Clearly the only market for these films is me, and a few other perverts.
