For years there have been VHS and DVD versions of the movie that won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 1964, "Ieri, oggi, domani," dubbed into English with hideously degraded color. The DVD one of these bad prints currently in circulation is the Interna edition. Anyone who cares about how the movies he or she watches looks should avoid this and all the pre-2005 VHS editions. There is good (monaural) sound and the original Italian language (still dubbed after shooting, as almost all Italian movies were and are, but by Mastroianni and Loren). Anyone who wants to see this movie should secure the remastered, wide-screen NoShame edition.( If getting movies from Blockbuster.com, the title search throws up the dideous Interna edition. It is necessary to click on "Show all editions" to see the good one. Netflix.com and Greencine.com show/send only the good one.) Even someone who insists on dubbing into English, should get the NoShame DVD, becausethe dubbed-into-English track is also available on it.

The list price of the NoShame edition is less than $3 more than the markedly inferior Interna one. The Noshame edition includes a booklet on the movie, a US theatrical trailer, a gallery of stills and posters. The Interna DVD has no bonus features.

I don't usually begin a review by discussing the DVD quality, but the most important guidance I can offer in regard to this movie is to get the NoShame edition, which was restored in collaboration with the De Sica Foundation from the original 2P negative (not that I know what a "2P negative" is; I'm just passing on the technical specification). The print's Technicolor is somewhat washed out, but not massively distorted as in the VHS and Interna prints.

I don't think that "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" is a great movie. It is glossier and more crowd-pleasing than the three great De Sica neorealist films that won Oscars and/or New York Film Critics Awards (Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D), warmer and more crowd-pleasing that the fourth De Sica Oscar-winning film (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis). It was obviously a showcase for Sophia Loren (whom De Sica had directed to an Oscar-winning performance the year before in "Two Women"). Less obviously, it was a showcase for Marcello Mastroianni.

If I had to say what the tripartite movie is about, I would say the power of female sexuality (in contrast to "Two Women," which I would say is about women's resiliency and ability to survive). In all three parts, Loren's character is in charge, while the Mastroianni one flounders trying to satisfy or get at the confident embodiment of The Eternal Feminine.

All three parts are over-the top. The first and last segment are caricatures (stereotypes or parodies) of Latin sensuality and sentimentality. The shorter middle panel is a satire of the postwar prosperity and the alienation of the upper classes portrayed by Michelangelo Antonioni (indeed, I suspect it was a parody of the bored nouveau riche as portrayed by Antonioni).

“Adelina of Naples” features Loren as an Earth Mother and the bread-winner of the rapidly expanding family. She sells contraband cigarettes and stays out of jail under a provision that pregnant women and women who have given birth within the previous six months could not be jailed. Her husband Carmine (Matroianni) is unable to secure full-time employment. His main "job" is to keep the babies coming. Eventually, he is overwhelmed by the demands (enervated by lack of sleep from all the squalling progeny and a poor diet). Adelina decides to take up the standing offer from her husband's best friend to keep the oven filled, but backs off at the last moment. (She does this in all three roles in all three segments.) There is an exuberant happy ending.

From the earthy baby-popping Adeline, Loren switched in the second segment to playing “Anna of Milan.” Anna is the wife of a very rich, generally absent industrialist. She has met a struggling writer Renzo (Mastroianni) and is taking him out into the country for a day in her Rolls-Royce convertible. She is a terrible driver and a very distracting passenger. This leads to a crash and Anna humiliated Renzo in a series of ways. This segment, based on a story by Alberto Moravia (whose novels were adapted to the screen not only in the De Sica/Loren "Two Women" but in Godard's "Contempt" and Bertolucci's "The Conformist"), is the shortest and most plotless (obviously, only the latter quality suggests parodying Antonioni!). To work, Anna has to be credible as at least thinking she wants to change her life. Her habitual spoiled trophy wife attitudes should resurface, but they are never submerged in this sketch. Mastroianni, on the other hand, has his hopes dashed. The would-be cuckolder is unmanned mostly by Anna, and then by another rich man (rescuing her from her déclassé companion in a fire-engine red Lancia convertible,)

As “Mara of Rome,” Loren is a high-priced call-girl. The segment consists of her deferring the gratification of a randy son of a Bologna industrial magnate (Mastroianni's Rusconi) and toying with a seminarian named Umberto (Gianni Ridolfi) who is smitten by her from the adjoining terrace, Umberto's grandmother (Tina Pica) considers Mara a disgrace who should be evicted, but eventually has to appeal to Mara to disenchant her grandson and restore his vocation for holy orders. The women conspire to get Umberto back on track (actually, onto a bus back to the seminary).

The famous Loren strip-tease (with the emphasis on the second word) occurs in the last ten minutes of the movie. The males are entirely controlled by the females (or more exactly, the Eternal Female controls the males by selectively blocking the males' sexual access). After the fecundity of the lumpenproleterian Earth Mother demanding servicing in the first part, Loren plays well-off c__kteases in the second two segments.

(It occurs to me that the third segment is a parody of Rosellini. Perhaps the first one is a parody of De Sica's earlier movies?)

IMNSHO, Loren was wooden in all the dramas and most of the comedies she made in English (her fluency in the language was not the problem). She was much better in Italian, mostly for De Sica but also in Ettore Scola's (1977) "Una giornata particolare"(A Special Day), in which Mastroianni had the showier part. (Now, I'd like a remastered DVD of "Marriage, Italian Style" (1964), please! And for blockbuster.com to get the NoShame restored four-part "Boccaccio '70"...)

I would rate the first segment 3.2, the second 2.8, the third 4.2. Given the horrendousness of earlier editions, I'd rate the NoShame DVD 5 (the Interna one 1).

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(The Oscar was dubious. (How unusual!) Its competitors that made it through the convoluted Oscar foreign film category included what is supposed to be a great Finnish movie Kvarteret Korpen along with two others I've seen and consider superior to it: "Woman in the Dunes" and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." Mastroianni received a BAFTA best foreign actor award for his performances, beating Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field.)

Other De Sica movies I have reviewed
Shoeshine (1946)
Umberto D. (1952)
After the Fox (1966)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
A Brief Vacation (1973)



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD