AllMovie

Before Al Pacino ever picked up a blind man's cane in the 1992 production of Scent of A Woman, Vittorio Gassman played a blind army captain in the 1974 Italian film Profumo di Donna, based on a novel by Giovanni Arpino. The earlier film unquestionably inspired the later one, though they differ significantly. The Captain, accompanied by Ciccio (Alessandro Momo), who has been assigned to him by the army, is on his way from Turin to Naples to meet with an army compatriot who was also disfigured in the same military incident. Unknown to his aide, the Captain means to fulfill a suicide pact there. While they journey, the captain asks Ciccio to help him spot beautiful women. Unsatisfied with the boy's descriptions, he uses his nose instead, claiming that he can smell a beautiful woman. The dashing blind military man enjoys considerable success with women. During their journey, he carries with him a picture of his beloved Sara (Agostina Belli), whom he could not bear to have see him disfigured and helpless. The suicide pact is eventually thwarted, Sara enters the picture, and the boy Ciccio does some much-needed growing up.