A wealthy Italian matriarch finds an unlikely object of lust in the form of a mysterious blonde visitor in this never-before-viewed scene from Radley Metzger’s 1970 erotica film, The Lickerish Quartet. Metzger created R-rated movies with widescreen ambition and Lickerish marked the high point of his fusion of sensual camp and European-influenced storytelling. Scored by Stelvio Cipriani, it was filmed partly at the famed Cinecitta studios and on location in a town called Balsorano in the Abruzzi Mountains. “Beautiful! Ripe with incredible color, décor and movement,” The New York Times’ wrote of the movie, while Andy Warhol called it “an outrageously kinky masterpiece.” Silvana Venturelli stars as ‘the Girl’, the fantasy woman for a wealthy Italian family: husband and wife (played by Frank Wolff and Erika Remberg) and their teenage son (Paolo Turco). In this alternate version of the film’s atmospheric climax, Metzger achieved his goal in filmmaking. “The films that I had made up to this one had done very well so I could suddenly do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to try and convince anyone else that it was a good idea,” he says. “I always wanted to do a movie about people who watch movies.” We caught up with the cultish 84-year-old director to get the lowdown on filming a steamy romp in a small Italian village.

What was filming Lickerish like?
Radley Metzger: It was very intense—there were no distractions because it was a very little town. The next town over was called Sora, where Vittorio De Sica was born. The star, Frank Wolff, was a very nice guy and full of life and the evening meals were very jolly. We imported a carnival and the locals came and were extras in the film. 

How did Andy Warhol discover the film?
RM: There is a photo of us together. He was a big fan of my films and whenever we had an opening he would come. He gave us a wonderful quotation at the premiere of The Lickerish Quartet to use in the publicity. It was very good of him because while it was very flattering, it was also very commercial.

During the mid-60s and early 70s did you feel you were riding a wave of erotica and popular culture merging?
RM: I think it was part of a general cultural shift at the time. There were many influences that allowed for the relaxation of [censorship laws]. One of them was Playboy because people always talked about community standards and community could be as small as a little village. When Playboy came out the community became the entire country so it was very hard to apply a standard to any particular city or village or state.

How did you get into film?
RM: I started out in editing, the only area in which there was any employment because there were no features being made in New York at that time. I was very lucky to get with Janus films, which is now Criterion. I edited trailers for Ingmar Bergman and Francois Truffaut. To hold the film of those great geniuses was like going to school—it was an education by contact. 

The Lickerish Quartet is beautifully restored and released for the very first time in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD from February 11.