Milo-Milo (1979)

The Paris art world is in an uproar. Art professor Schliefeld is actually claiming that the famous Venus de Milo in the Louvre is a forgery! The original may have long since made its way back to Greece, so all sorts of people set off for the cradle of democracy. Schliefeld’s daughter, Barbara, an archaeologist, also travels to the island of Milos to investigate what became of the masterpiece. The general meeting place is the local Hotel-Café “Aphrodite,” run by Thanasis, a Greek through and through. He is notable above all for his boundless curiosity about his guests and an equally pronounced jealousy. For his wife is the voluptuous Aphrodite, after whom the hotel-café is named, and this café owner, whose past is questionable—Aphrodite comes from Naples’s prostitution scene—turns men’s heads one after another. Along with Barbara, who soon gives herself naked to the sensual pleasures of the sun-drenched holiday island, other eccentric guests have also gathered at the hotel. There is, for example, Nicolos, who claims to have pirate blood in his veins and goes on about a mysterious treasure. Before long, he is hovering lovestruck around Barbara, who begins to take an interest in his “treasure,” a great work of art. Could it really be the original “Venus”? The motley gallery of “Aphrodite” guests is rounded out by Louis, a bona fide representative of the French underworld, and some Americans who want to drill on the island because they suspect uranium deposits there. The commotion eventually grows so great that the island’s remote, unspoiled natural beauty and innocence are soon in grave danger.