“A DASH OF UNUSUAL BRILLIANCE BEHIND A FACE WITH WHITE GLASSES”

By Raymond Benson

The somewhat snobbish critic John Simon has said that the only “great” female film directors are Leni Riefenstahl and Lina Wertmüller. I’m sure we can all take issue with such a sexist comment, but he is correct that both women were indeed “great,” even though the former is known for Nazi propaganda films of the 1930s. Wertmüller, on the other hand, made different kinds of scandalous pictures—but at least ones that were, and still are, entertaining. (They also sometimes had whimsically long titles, such as The End of the World in Our Usual Bed on a Night Full of Rain.)

In the early to mid-1970s, Wertmüller was the face of a daring new Italian cinema. When her movies were imported to America and the U.K, she was dubbed the “Female Fellini.” In fact, she was once an assistant director for the auteur. But Wertmüller’s work took Fellini’s extravagance and pushed it to an extreme, creating her own signatory brand of comedy, theatricality, biting satire, political commentary, and often shocking truths. Four of her films released between 1972-1975, in which she collaborated with the brilliant actor Giancarlo Giannini, established Wertmüller as a powerful force of artistic vision. It is no small feat that she was the first woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Kino Lorber has recently restored and released several Wertmüller titles on Blu-ray and DVD, along with an excellent documentary on the woman herself. Cinema Retro received an assortment of them, all of which will be discussed here.

The jewel in the crown of all of Kino Lorber’s Wertmüller disks is Seven Beauties (1975; released in the U.S. and U.K. in 1976). It was the picture for which she received the Oscar nomination (she lost to John G. Avildsen, for Rocky). It also received nods for Best Foreign Film, Best Actor (Giannini), and Original Screenplay. Beauties is a tour-de-force that features Giannini at his best as the swaggering Pasqualino, a minor hood in Naples during World War II. He takes great pains to protect the honor of his seven sisters, even though he isn’t so honorable himself. When he is captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp, Pasqualino audaciously figures he can save himself by “seducing” the female commandant, a monster of a woman played by Shirley Stoler.

Wertmüller has an uncanny ability to combine the horrors of the Holocaust with the absurdity of Pasqualino’s Chaplin-esque pathetic bravado. You wince and shudder at the brutality on display—and then you find yourself laughing. Giannini, who acts more with his eyes than anyone else I can think of, totally engages the viewer with pathos and ridiculousness. In the end, Seven Beauties is a powerful statement about what man will do to survive, and how expendable “honor” really is.

Kino Lorber’s Seven Beauties Blu-ray is a gorgeous 2K restoration with 2.0 stereo audio, in Italian with optional English subtitles. Supplements include an interview with filmmaker Amy Heckerling about the film and Wertmüller, an excerpt from the separately-released documentary, Behind the White Glasses, and trailers for other releases by the director. The booklet features essays by director Allison Anders and film historian Claudia Consolati, PhD. Click here to order from Amazon. 

Summer Night (or: Summer Night with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil) (1986) stars Mariangela Melato (who co-starred with Giannini in three of the 70s pictures) and Michele Placido in an obvious attempt to recreate the magic that was Wertmüller’s crowd-pleaser, Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (1974). Summer Night, like the earlier film, is a bawdy romance between two characters with fiery dispositions and opposite political stances. While this sexy romp is somewhat entertaining, and the cinematography of the locales—set around Sardinia—is breathtaking, the film doesn’t work. Both leads are too unlikable to fully grasp onto. The Blu-ray, however, is an excellent presentation, also with a 2K restoration and 2.0 stereo audio. The only supplements are trailers, and the booklet features an essay by critic John Simon. Click here to order from Amazon