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| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Italian director Antonio Pietrangeli was one of the foremost
purveyors of the Italian-style comedy which emerged in the 1950s before gaining
prominence throughout the 1960s. Preempted
by films such as Big Deal on Madonna Street or Divorce Italian Style,
they were an exodus from neorealism in favor of sardonic social satire lampooning
the contradictions and consequences of modern Italy. Often dealing in problems of infidelity,
divorce, marriage and economic growth, usually tailored around the middle-class
individual, they were edgier and more provocative social commentaries which
often mixed sex and comedy into a bawdy sociopolitical cocktail. Already several films into his filmography as
a master of the Italian-style comedy, Antonio Pietrangeli directed two comedies
with Marcello Mastroianni before arguably directing his masterpiece in 1964 with
an adaptation of Belgian playwright Fernand Crommelynck’s Le Cocu Magnifique,
retitled The Magnificent Cuckold.
A star-studded vehicle led by the great Claudia Cardinale
and Ugo Tognazzi, opening on a rollicking opening song with a tracking shot
that follows our dandy hat tycoon Andrea Artusi (Tognazzi) through the opening
credits as he makes a promenade through Rome.
Living in luxury and happily in love with his younger wife Maria Grazia
(Cardinale), he’s something of an ineffectual nebbish dork among his peers who seem
to get off on cuckolding one another.
Falling victim to adultery himself against the strong sexual advances of
one of his married lady friends, the act of cheating on his wife ignites
something increasingly insane within him as he soon grows the paranoid belief
his wife has repeatedly made a cuckold of him with other men. Paying friends to spy on her before tailing
her awkwardly himself, lashing out at dinner parties and trying to assert some
measure of dominance over her, its only a matter of time before the truth gets
back to her and following a steady onslaught of bollocks, she soon begins
plotting her sweet revenge on her foolhardy husband.
Wry, hallucinatory and highly sardonic, The Magnificent
Cuckold is a little bit like the Italo comedy version of what would or
wouldn’t become Alain Resnais’ Melo which also wore its stage play roots
on its sleeves. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s
unmade Inferno film project with Romy Schneider comes to mind also. A masterful, deliriously entertaining dark
comedy of sexual innuendo, jealousies with hilariously paranoid interior
monologue provided by Tognazzi, dripping with sexiness from its sultry
seductress Claudia Cardinale who does an excellent job of playing her true self
and her wicked controlling and possessive husband’s ultra-sexualized version of
herself, its a comedy of manners and intrigue that thumbs the nose at
distinctly Italian modernity. Though
shot in black-and-white by Armando Nannuzzi of The Damned and even
Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive, visually speaking the film is
overwhelming and innovative with the use of foggy wide angled lenses that
stretch and distort the sides of the image for fantasy sequences. The jazzy poppy score by Armando Trovajoli of
Marriage Italian Style fame serves the steadily more outlandish and
comical proceedings beautifully while also highlighting the aura of mod
sixties.
While featuring a number of character actors including
Bernard Blier and Gian Maria Volonte as well as a bevy of male suitors ready to
take Maria away from her husband (in his mind), essentially this ensemble saga
boils down to its two principal characters Maria and Andrea. While Claudia Cardinale does a lot of the
heavy lifting with suggestive, implied nudity and sex including playing out
onscreen her husband’s jealous thoughts of what she might be up to when he’s
not around, let it be said Ugo Tognazzi has the frankly unceremonious task of
humiliating himself onscreen time and time again. He’s fantastic in it but I would be lying if I
said his behavior of projection and assigning blame for his own sins wasn’t
sometimes difficult to stomach. It
represents a brave performance of self-driven emasculation where everyone but
the guy looking back at him in the mirror is an enemy. Claudia’s a triumph in the piece while Ugo
Tognazzi eventually does sort of fulfill on the promise of the film’s title.
Released in 1964 theatrically to Italian filmgoers before
being restored in 2025 and nominated at the Venice Film Festival for Best 4K Restoration
conducted by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Compass Film, The
Magnificent Cuckold makes its worldwide English subtitled Blu-ray disc premiere
with a surprising amount of extras including a deleted color fantasy sequence
taken from a re-edited shorter version of the film. As with Radiance Films’ OBI spine and essay
filled booklet with detailed notes on the restoration process, the disc comes
with interviews from Italian film experts Richard Dyer and Remi Fournier Lanzoni
and reversible sleeve art. As always,
Radiance Films continues to be at the forefront of the boutique releasing label
ocean and The Magnificent Cuckold represents another integral and
delightful acquisition for the company.
A terrific home video release of one of the best examples the Italian-style
comedy has to offer!
--Andrew Kotwicki
