[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIHV3f0B2M]

The Frightened Woman

Femina Ridens (Frightened Woman, 1969) is an Italian film by director Piero Schivazappa, displaying a huge vagina dentata from Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Hon” in his set design by (start at 1’10”). The film was distributed by Radley Metzger‘s Audubon Films. The male character, Dotto (Philippe Leroy), invites a young female employee Mary (Dagmar Lassander) to his modish house for a weekend of S&M. The tables slowly turn to the point where Mary becomes the willing master (similar to the dynamic power shift in Losey’s The Servant, 1963). The film is reviewed in Psychopathia Sexualis in Italian Sinema (1968 – 1972).