With thirty-three directing credits over sixty years, only three or four Lina Wertmüller films (all from 1972 to 1978) found wide international favor & distribution.* And from this unprecedentedly fast rise & fall, L&A now seems best, certainly the best Wertmüller introduction. Famous for giving her films long subheadings, she missed the obvious one here: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO ASSASSINATE MUSSOLINI AT THE FORUM. It’s just about what happens to Giancarlo Giannini’s freckled rural naïf, in Rome to meet ‘cousin’ Mariangela Melato, top whore at a lux brothel who’s his contact agent for the anarchist assassination assignment he’s here to carry out. With three days to kill before the killing, Melato helps by hooking up with a Fascist ‘John,’ an insider with possible info on Il Duce’s movements. Double-dating with Giannini & fresh-faced hooker Lina Polito, Melato endures while Giannini falls madly in love with his arranged date. Wertmüller plays it all very broadly, her coarseness abetted by typically sloppy Italian post-production dubbing of her mile-a-minute dialogue. You adjust to it when the gags pay off (Giannini expertly overplaying in a believable manner), as the screws tighten and the film tips from seriously funny to serious. All greatly helped by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s warm interior pallette & from editor Franco Fraticelli’s control of pace & minutiae, sharply balancing Wertmüller’s farcical-chops with drama.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Any possibility of reestablishing the Wertmüller rep scotched after the Guy Ritchie/Madonna 2002 SWEPT AWAY remake. Wertmüller’s 1974 original, with Giannini & Melato, looking pretty worn as well.
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