Back catalogue: Soundtracks

Review: Translated into English, The Novice is a 1975 Italian movie about a young chap returning to his provincial hometown to visit his dying uncle, who is being cared for by a night nurse who also happens to be a novice nun, played by the remarkably beautiful and seductive Gloria Guida. An erotic comedy, you can guess where the plot goes, but the casting of Lionel Stander as ageing relative is interesting.

The US actor was memorialised in Eric Bentley's play Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been after his famously uncooperative testimony before the House of Un-American Activities, responsible for exposing communists in the early days of the Cold War. Subsequently blacklisted from TV, film, and radio in his homeland, he eventually moved to Europe, first setting up shop in London, where he would make flicks for decades, often pretty obscure ones. This is one, and the music is wonderfully kitsch, Wurlitzer-packed elevator stuff, so if that's your bag so is this.