Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63973 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-10-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.com
Lina Wertmuller and her favorite actor, Giancarlo Giannini, took large steps toward establishing their international reputations with this 1973 tragi-comedy about an oaf who gets it into his head to assassinate Mussolini right after the Fascist takeover of Italy. The hero's plans, however, get a little off-track when he falls for a prostitute in the brothel where he's hiding out. As always, Wertmuller's politics can get ahead of the rest of her film. But her sharply perceptive and comic takes on the collapse of various human constructions--social divisions, schemes, dignity--in intense situations is the stuff of genuine revelation. Giannini's renown in the 1970s as a new Chaplin, an innocent buffeted by the world's brutality and easily distracted, got a big boost from his work here. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

DVD Technical Review
I have exchanged this DVD twice and find that the quality of the transfer is unacceptable. Fox Lorber simply did a poor job of transferring this film to DVD. I recommend that you NOT purchase this DVD until they do a better job of transferring the movie. The movie deserves better.

Excellent film - poor DVD
One of the early Wertmuller films, allready demonstrating all the hallmarks of her style. A brave film, uncompromising in its grotesquerie, and driving home its bleak message as only Wertmuller can. Not as compelling as the later masterpieces, or demonstrating as much of the trademark humour, but still putting most to shame.
The film deserves a full five stars, but Fox Lorber's dvd deserves zero - a very poorly done transfer made from a very poor source. It looks like the sort of thing you could put together at home from an old vhs copy. This powerful film needs a proper dvd transfer.

Wertmuller's most stylish film
This film, set in a brothel during WWII in fascist Italy, hammers home Wertmuller's common theme that men, ruled by their passions as well as society's views of how men must act (see her film "All Screwed Up" for an even more unambiguous statement of this philosphy), cannot adapt well to change and are often the reasons for their own downfalls. Gianini plays a country peasant who travels to the city to assassinate Mussolini; seemingly devoid of poilitical convictions, the only clue we get to reason behind his mission is his statement, "Sometimes a Man must stand up and say enough!". And it is this statement that is his ultimate downfall.

By contrast, the women in the brothel show themselves to me quite strong, yet capable of adapting to the changes the political situation brings; they can get along with the fascists (allowing them to sample their wares), yet can also strike back or make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their aims (one of the major sacrifices demonstrated is the major character's willingnenss to allow her beloeved to think she betrayed him (and wind up hating her) to save his life. Even the men that get along with the fascists assume the more submissive, traditionally female roles. The real tragedy occurs because Gianini's character refuses to abandon his macho character traits and foolishly goes forward with a suicide mission which is neither well thought out or executed.

Some of Wertmuller's ideas and themes may be a bit dated, remember this was released nearly thirty years ago; but the film provides an entertaining look at a woman's view of a male dominated society in the early days of the womens' liberation movement. The style, pacing, and direction, to sya nothing of the acting talents of Gianini and Melato, contribute to an important film that is well worth viewing.