Seven Beauties (1975)

Original title: Pasqualino Settebellezze

Director: Lina Wertmuller

Writer: Lina Wertmuller

Composer: Enzo Jannacci

Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore, Piero Di lorio, Enzo Vitale, Roberto Herlitzka, Lucio Amelio, Ermelinda De Felice, Bianca D'Origlia, Francesca Marciano, Mario Conti, Barbara Valmorin

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ...that's what they call him.

Plot: The defense of honor, a strong value in Neapolitan society, and his effects on the life of everyman Pasquale Frafuso.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Talk about a letdown!  This highly regarded comedy/drama did not fare well with this cat.  It's a good looking picture and there's a good movie in this somewhere but it didn't sit well with me and it was the uneven tone that did it.  It feels like it wants to be a lighthearted Italian comedy set in a serious world with a heavy message but the comedy didn't once land for me.  I didn't like Pasqualino (Giannini).  He's a bad man who fancies himself a good one.  The guy's a rapist for fuck's sake and we're supposed to like him?  He has a little charm but at the same time he does some horrible things and that charm cannot overcome that.  The music them is contagious and too often used.  The picture takes a 90 turn before the halfway mark and lands Pasqualino in a Nazi concentration camp.  The female commandant looked strangely familiar and it turns out to be the same actress from THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1969).  Neat.  The film is about survival but with a main character that's often not likable, I just didn't care if he lived or not.  I take that back.  I'm not sure he deserved what he got in the end.  I don't think he earned it despite his suffering in the camp.