Publisher: CinemaSerf June 9, 2024
This is a bit like a sandwich with the bread in the middle and the filling on each side... Sophia Loren is the woman and Marcello Mastroianni the man and the results of these three short scenarios are really quite funny. The first sees her as "Adelina", married to the jobless "Carmine" and reduced to selling illicit cigarettes on the street whilst doing her best Queen Anne impersonation of being eternally pregnant. Why? Well she has discovered that so long as she is expecting she is pretty much untouchable by the carabinieri - and boy can she exploit that loophole, much to the exhaustion of her poor, and penniless, husband. Next she is "Anna" - the bored wife of a successful Brussels bureaucrat who takes struggling artist "Renzo" on a trip in her Rolls Royce - which he duly prangs. Let's just say - she doesn't exactly hang around to help with the tyre change. Finally, my favourite of the triptych. She is "Mara" - a lady who likes to entertain fine gentlemen in her apartment. One afternoon she espies some young eyes watching her from the neighbouring apartment. Dressed only in a sheet she flirts a little, only to discover that when he walks into view, he is a priest. "Umberto" (Gianni Ridolfi) looks like butter wouldn't melt but is immediately smitten by this sophisticated woman, much to the furious annoyance of his grandmother (Tina Pica) and to her travelling date "Augusto" (MM). When the young man declares a change of heart on his life of religious observance, the three adults have to find a way of putting him back on his true path - but will they manage? The central feature is just a little short, the first maybe a touch too long - it does (no pun intended) rather labour the joke, but the concluding part is funny with the accumulating chemistry between the two stars and the savvy Pica working well to finish off a story of mischief in which it's usually Loren who pulls the strings. Mastroianni is very natural here and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him as he seemed to end up out-manoeuvred however he played his cards. It's got a jolly Trovajoli score that substitutes quite nicely for dialogue some of the time, and is really one of De Sica's easier films to sort of glide through, enjoyably.