Madamigella di Maupin (1966)

Loosely based on a novel by Theophile Gautier, Catherine Spaak plays a woman who masquerades as a man and is later urged to enlist in the army, where an officer falls in love with her.

Take a Hard Ride (1975)

An Italian-American production shot in Spain but set in America's Old West, this strange mix of blaxploitation and spaghetti western (with a little Kung Fu thrown in for good measure) follows a group of people going after an $86,000 fortune being carried through the desert and past the Mexican border by Jim Brown.

Catherine Spaak plays the token (in this case, former) prostitute, who's rescued by Brown and later discloses her past to him.

Unseen Spaak: Non faccio la guerra, faccio l'amore (1966)

Directed by Franco Rossi, best known for co-directing several Italian omnibus films in the sixties (including Catherine Spaak in "La Moglie Bambina" for "Tre Notti d'amore"), this film (which translates to "Don't Make War, Make Love" in English) starring Spaak as a 20 year-old girl aboard a German ship seems to be entirely out of circulation.

If this has been seen since 1966, it would've been on Italian or Spanish television sometime in the last forty years (I only assume not recently). There are no reviews online in any language. The soundtrack composed by Riz Ortolani was released on CAM records in Italy around the time of the film's release, but is not available on CD, nor (to my knowledge) does any piece from the score appear on any number of Ortolani compilations. The wonderful (almost Godard-like) photos of Spaak with the film's title printed on her yellow & black attire certainly pique my interest.

La Noia (1963)

There were over a dozen film adaptations of Alberto Moravia novels made in the nineteen-sixties (the most famous being Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" and Vittorio De Sica's "Two Women"), and while I would be hard-pressed to call "La Noia" a faithful or even apt adaptation of Moravia's spectacular novel, it's an interesting drama that communicates a painful and impossibly mortal situation rather well.

Horst Buchholz plays a depressive, bored, angry aspiring painter from a wealthy family living "poor" in the city, waving the "artist" flag and waiting for inspiration. Living in the room across the hall is a successful seventy year-old painter who is visited daily by a young model played by Spaak, who immediately captures Horst's interest in the opening scene when he sees her from his window. After the elderly painter dies, Horst discovers Spaak moving some of her things out of the apartment and he introduces himself. Not a few minutes pass before they become lovers, and the bulk of what plays out is their heated sexual relationship and Horst's inability to deal with her subsequent promiscuity and lies. A very tough story. The ending rings true, and it's a scene I've been through myself.

Beautifully-shot with good performances all around, "La Noia" contains some of the most iconic moments in Catherine Spaak's career, including a scene where her nude body is covered with money (an image that pre-dates a similar scene in Mario Bava's popular "Danger: Diabolik") and an amazing crane shot of her dancing to a Rita Pavone song on an outdoor patio against a lovely scenic view.