Alberto Olmedo and Jorge Porcel were a famous comedic duo from Argentina that were known for the exploitation/adventure comedies. Although we have already visited them in this space, Porcel was also incredibly successful on his own as a latsploitation actor and made as many films by himself as he did with his usual partner in crime. While the movies in which both appeared prominently featured Olmedo’s humor and the chemistry between the actors, Porcel’s solo efforts focused more on generous displays of flesh and somewhat raunchier comedy. Custodio de señoras (Ladies’ escort) was one of many Porcel films in which comedy took a backseat to gorgeous women in skimpy outfits. Needless to say, I had to watch it.

 

CUSTODIO DE SEÑORAS
Argentina, 1979, Hugo Sofovich

In Custodio de señoras, Jorge Peralta is a photojournalist for a respected newspaper that’s struggling with sales. One day, another photographer shows up at the office with something that will make them all millionaires: pictures of aliens and their aircraft. As they’re developing the film, Peralta walks in and turns on the light, ruining the developing film and shattering everyone’s dreams. Fearing that he’ll be fired and concerned about how he’ll manage to support his grandfather, who lives with him, if that happens, Peralta convinces a friend to get him work as a private investigator. Instead of a PI, he lands a job running errands for his friend’s boss. One of his first assignments is depositing money in a bank. Peralta unknowingly walks into the middle of a bank robbery and, through a few unintentional moves and a lot of luck, manages to get the three robbers under control. As a result, he finally gets to do some PI work: protecting a woman from the killer her wounded ex-boyfriend has hired to kill her. Protecting the rich lady proves to be harder than Peralta ever imagined, but in typical comedic fashion, that only leads to comedy and encounters with other women that distract him from the task at hand.

Surprisingly, there were a few jokes in here that were actually somewhat funny. When it comes to silly humor, latsploitation has a knack for strange jokes that often seem to make no sense even when you are very familiar with the culture that produced the film. In this one, however, writer and director Hugo Sofovich actually wanted to create new jokes and try to play with the language and situations as much as possible. For example, when a young lady approached Peralta, sticks her derriere out and asks if a bee stung her, he responds that, judging by the size of what he’s looking at, she was probably stung by a gorilla.

Besides the humor, what makes Custodio de señoras a fun film is the way they created every situation possible in order to ensure that they had as many scantily clad women on screen as possible. For example, Peralta and his grandfather live in a hotel/hostel where about 98% of the residents are prostitutes. Also, whenever there are no random naked ladies on screen, Peralta is usually with the woman he has to protect, played by actress and model Graciela Alfano, who is definitely easy on the eyes and offers a stark contrast whenever she’s next to Porcel. Also, the audio and camera work are good enough to not be a weakness.

Porcel appeared in dozens of films and, without seeing all of them, I can’t say this is his best one without Olmedo. However, the combination of humor, flesh and slightly-above-average writing make Custodio de señoras a good pick for a lazy afternoon.