The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

I find a morbid fascination in all those movies that start with “The Amorous Adventures of…” featuring some famous character from literature or history. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because, deep down, I know there’s a good chance I’m about to watch a terrible movie. Or perhaps it’s some kind of revenge for works I was forced to read.

With these thoughts in mind, I watched The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, a 1976 film directed by Raphael Nussbaum and featuring Haji, whom we fondly remember from her roles in Russ Meyer’s films. And, as expected, this film is a disaster. Apparently, even Haji herself hated it deeply—at least according to IMDb. And I can’t blame her.

What we have here is a collection of poorly made, poorly acted, and even worse-shot soft-core scenes. To make matters worse, the film drags on for a full 103 minutes. Still, I must admit that, despite its countless flaws, the movie does have a few curiosities. I wouldn’t call them “strengths,” but rather oddities worth mentioning.

Aside from its attempt—very loosely—to capture the spirit of Cervantes’ novel, Nussbaum had the brilliant idea of including several musical numbers, turning the film into a bizarre soft-core musical in period costumes. It’s not entirely original; soft-core musicals were already a thing. But this strange blend of genres makes it, if nothing else, unique. Horrible, but unique.

The plot is exactly what you’d expect: Don Quixote imagines epic adventures while wandering around with Sancho Panza. The twist here is that the two rescue naked women, have sex, and then do it all over again. Sancho Panza is portrayed as an old lecher. And that’s pretty much it.