For many years, I'd been curious about "Boccaccio '70" the 1962 compilation of short (albeit not short enough!) films directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vittorio de Sica. It has become available from No Shame on two DVDs, and was something of a disappointment, given my long wait and high expectations.

Monicelli's (which was jettisoned for the American theatrical version) "Renzo and Luciana" shows a couple of coworkers (Marisa Solinas and Germano Giliol) who secretly marry despite their employer's ban on intracompany marriages (and despite his stupidity IMO). She figures out a resolution that is neither surprising nor very interesting, though the movie does show something about class differences, most amusingly at a swimming pool on a weekend day. (2.9 stars).

Fellini's "Temptation of Dr. Anthony" is from the beginning of the surrealistic (Felliniesque) period (between "La Dolce Vita" and "8 1/2"—indeed, this is the one half of a movie). It shows a moral entrepreneur (Peppino De Filippo) outraged by a milk ad he considers too lascivious. It features Anita Ekberg (out of the Trevi fountain from "La Dolce Vita"). A 50-foot-tall (and enormously endowed) Ekberg comes off the censored poster to torment and titillate the unsaintly busybody. Although it goes on too long (with a society of fellow enforcers of prudery), and both of the leading characters are caricatures, it has its moments of ludicrous comedy. ( 3.4 stars)

So does Visconti's "The Job" in which Conte Ottavio Lech (letch? though probably this is not an Italian-English cognate), played by Tomas Milian, is an impoverished aristocrat married to Pupe (Romy Schneider) for her father's money. Ottavio has been caught by paparazzi in a tryst with an expensive prostitute. Pupe declares that she will stand by her husband but is no longer going to accept money from her father. This also runs on longer than it needs to, but has some wicked wit, but cannot hold up to comparison with "The Leopard" as a portrayal of old and new money, marriages of convenience, and the development of awareness about how things are. (3.7 stars)

De Sica directed Sophia Loren in almost all her good performances. In "The Raffle," a night with Zoe (Loren) is raffled off (to provide needed funds for her pregnant sister). The men of the town are in an uproar of drooling over the prospects and discomfited when the local church's sacristan (Alfio Vita) who is dominated by his mother has the winning ticket. He refuses to sell and Zoe has fallen in love (or something) with a conventionally handsome man (Luigio Giuliana) who has, she believes, saved her from a rampaging bull. (He is in charge of the herd, which, I guess, makes him an Italian "cowboy.") A way to make everyone happy is found by the resourceful Zoe. The film actively participates in the townsmen's leering, but manages to portray an earthy but remarkably innocent Zoe, who turns out to be as conventional as Conte Ottavio. It is the least overlong of the four and the most star-vehiclish. (3.5 stars)

The men are no match for the women in any of the four. The women keep the men in a slavering dither and call the shots, although sometimes in ways in which the men think they are making the decisions.

The No Shame DVD transfer is good. The last three films (the one's that were the American release) are available in English or Italian, Monicelli's only in Italian. Subtitles are legible and make sense. I can't speak to their accuracy, but I think they are incomplete.

The bonus features (on the second disc) are paltry: scratchy (unrestored) Italian and English-language trailers, some small photo galleries slideshows for each of the four films, a very brief (under one minute) clip of De Sica talking about Loren in his film (and a booklet that I have not seen).

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BTW, in the American theatrical release, the order was Visconti, De Sica, Fellini. Italo Calvino received screen credit (one of three) for "Renzo e Luciana," Cesar Zavattini (sole writing credit) for "La riffa."

I don't see much relationship—other than a certain bawdiness and looks at crafty men who are not as crafty as they suppose—to the work of Boccaccio, some of whose stories were put together on screen by Pier Paolo Pasolini in Il Decameron (1971).

©2006, Stephen O. Murray



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD