MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS / SIGNORE & SIGNORI* (1966)

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CONTEST - Win a review of any available DVD or 'Streamer' of your choice* if you're the first to answer a Q attached to one of the write-ups. Please refrain from either Googling or searching for an answer via IMdB or other web movie services! These contests are plenty easy to solve just be using your little grey cells.

RECOMMENDED - Meaning Strongly Recommended. A film that's good enough or historically important enough to demand viewing. WARNING: A few real stinkers are important enough to rate this label. And, on the other hand, lots of pretty good or pretty valuable films, don't quite measure up to our RECOMMENDED level. (See also UNIQUE, below.)

FAMILY FRIENDLY - CAREFUL!! Not necessarily a KIDDIE pic, but a film that school kids may get into if the subject interests. You'll find foreign & silent pics in here as the need to read the sub-titles & inter-titles to follow the narrative and get all the jokes does wonders for ADD types.

LINK - To quickly find any Write-Up that includes an InterNet Link of interest for that specific film.

UNIQUE - Films that may not fit into the usual critical categories of Good, Bad or Indifferent, (certainly not indifferent!), but are worth watching because there just ain't nothing like 'em. Sui generis pics. (Phooey generis if they don't work for you.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT - While there's a book or two (or ten dozen) closely related to just about any film you might think of, here's a specific book you might not have known about (or thought of) that opens a window on the chosen title.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY - A place to vent those out-of-left-field thoughts.

POSTER - Hmm, I bet you can figure this one out.

(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT - sort of like those EAT THIS, NOT THAT diet books only with film instead of food as the topic. Sometimes, the substitute pick isn't the obvious 'better' choice, but one of those 'flawed-but-interesting' films that often get left behind.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID - some easy to miss element worth noting.

SILENT FILM - hey, figure it out (LOL)

. . . and DOUBLE-BILL - a suggested second feature.

To bring up the complete list in any of these categories, simply click on one of the LABELS when you come across one and everything with that designation will come up when the page reloads. Just scroll down. There's also a LABELS list near the bottom of all the pages.

Please let me know if there are any other LABELS you'd like to see.

AND YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS BECAUSE . . . ?

Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

Now over 6000 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

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Monday, May 11, 2026

THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS / SIGNORE & SIGNORI* (1966)

Commedia all'italiana master Pietro Germi, best known for DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE/’61, goes to Treviso for a triptych of one-act sex farces within an unchanging cast of middle-aged middle-class Lotharios. Story #1 centers on a socially connected doctor whose long-time pal is struggling with a bout of impotence. The weakest and most stereotypical of the three stories, the guy who can’t keep his pants on also can’t get it up! But what if the cure turned out to be a quickie with the Doc’s wife? The betrayal cure. Tired stuff. But improvement is just around the corner in story two. Here, when a long-standing extramarital affair is exposed, the husband’s not ashamed, but relieved, even shaving off his goatee to celebrate his new freedom. But since family ties can’t be clipped off quite as easily as a goatee, the story’s not over till the fashionably thin wife sings. Spot on perfs all ‘round, and unexpected real emotion between comic playing. Nice use of the confused son & daughter, too. Then the last story blows them all away as a willing young beauty uses her allure & availability like a credit card. (Germi brutally frank as needed.) But when the girl’s peasant father shows up to collect, threatening the five men who’ve been partaking, he has a trump card to play. His girl is still a minor. Regrets, scandal, incompetent lawyer, outraged judge, real trouble in Treviso. Germi not fooling around. Enter one of the wives. She knows the score. She’s known the score; and not just the sexual score. Plus faith that the rich have their ways (they write the rules), while the poor, especially the undeserving poor (the girl’s father thrilled at the cash he thinks is coming) always end up with the short end of the stick. As if the poor man forgot: in Italian; commedia all'italiana doesn’t only mean comedy.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Try a Germi outlier, ALFREDO, ALFREDO/’72 with Dustin Hoffman going all Italian on us. (Dubbed on the Italian track, he does his own talking in the English language dub.) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/03/alfredo-alfredo-1972.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *For once, the Stateside title improves on the generic original.

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Monday, May 11, 2026

THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS / SIGNORE & SIGNORI* (1966)

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