Up in Smoke in Naples

After a chance encounter with filmmaker Ciro Ippolito in 1982, French actress Annie Belle, who just starred in The House on the Edge of the Park (Ruggero Deodato), Absurd (Joe D’Amato) and Tiger Joe (Antonio Margheriti), made the unusual pivot to Neapolitan musical dramas. The first was Pronto…Lucia, co-starring singer Carmelo Zappulla and released in Southern Italy on October 29, 1982.

The second to hit theaters was The Soldier in Love (O’Surdato Nnammurato), which released on April 27, 1983 and featured another well-known Neapolitan singer, Franco Cipriani. The plot is your standard Naples melodrama, with unfunny comedic interludes and random breaks for Cipriani to croon alongside his five-piece band.

One moment that does stand out is a rare scene in which Annie can be seen puffing on a tobacco cigarette. Is this of interest to anyone other than die-hard Annie Belle fans like myself and cinematic smoking fetishists? Probably not.

_{Note: Sorry to all my Italian readers, the above Youtube video is blocked in your country.}