The Most Beautiful Wife (1970)

I grew up in a place which at one point in time had garnered the nickname “Mob City” due to decades of Mafia influence, bought public officials, and violence.  Never mind that the area had been started by immigrants and children of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Poland, and so on (see the story of the Molly Maguires, if you doubt).  No, the “glamorous” world of mobsters was more attractive to read and write about than the trials and tribulations of low class coal miners.  This is not to say that the Mob were boy scouts by any stretch of the imagination.  Far from it.  And they certainly had a pronounced effect on the community at large.  As a matter of fact, in 1976, in arguably their most public display of violence, the Mafia firebombed a local deputy sheriff’s house in 1976, killing not only the deputy but also his wife and three children.  Yet when I was growing up, I don’t think I ever once saw an illicit or bloodthirsty act happen in front of me, and any ill effects from the Mafia’s presence in the city were never felt personally by me.  Maybe that was the point.  Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention.  Maybe I was willfully ignorant.  Who can say?  

Still, films and television shows like The Sopranos, Goodfellas, and The Godfather are more palatable to the American public compared to those featuring working class characters, regardless of any similarities between them.  To my mind, this is indicative of the American film industry’s tendency to beautify the ugly, or the uglier aspects of ugly people and ugly situations.  Hollywood is, after all, “The Dream Factory,” and I don’t fault them for doing this.  I understand why Playboy and Penthouse are more popular magazines than, say, Torso (for some, at any rate).  In many of the Eurocrime films that I’ve seen, however, the criminals may hold themselves above and live a bit better than the common folks, but they are also closely linked with those common folks, and not just by proximity.  They are big fish in small ponds, but they realize that they are fish, and they realize that it is a pond in which they swim, not an ocean.  It’s this sort of de-glamorization in which filmmakers such as the late Damiano Damiani seemed to specialize (at least from what I’ve seen of his output), and his film The Most Beautiful Wife (aka La Moglie Più Bella) is a sterling example, because not only does it not glorify the Mafia, it’s not even really a Eurocrime film in the way most people think of them.  That Damiani tells a more compelling and memorable story than many other films of the subgenre is a testament to the man’s talents.

Vito (Alessio Orano) is a young Mafioso, and he is present when the big cheeses of his family are carted off to prison by a zealous Lieutenant of the local Carabinieri (Pierluigi Aprà).  But before they go, Don Antonino (Amerigo Tot) imparts some wisdom on the lad: one, prisons should be places of suffering, and behind bars you learn patience, how to wait, and how to endure, and two, marry a woman with high moral character, preferably a poor one.  Enter Francesca (a fourteen-year-old Ornella Muti, whom most readers would recognize from her turn as Princess Aura in Flash Gordon), the daughter of poor farmers.  She begins dating Vito, but will not bow to his desire to control and own her.  With his bosses awaiting trial and the vicious Amantia family breathing down his neck, now is not the time for Vito to appear weak, but what he chooses to do will have repercussions for the rest of both his and Francesca’s lives.

The film is based very closely (from what I’ve been able to read) on the case of Franca Viola, conceivably the largest feminist figure in Italy post World War Two.  But what’s intriguing here is what the film also says about status and the perception of character in a community.  Vito knows that Francesca and her family are beneath him on a social level.  Still he wants to marry her, because of what Antonino told him (obedience), because he feels entitled to do so (hubris), and because Francesca’s refusal to give in lowers Vito in the eyes of people he seeks to impress (pride).  Vito has to look strong in a culture characterized in many ways by male dominance.  Francesca is viewed as lowly to start out, being a simple field worker, but after Vito forces himself on her in a bid to pressure her into marriage, her status is lowered further.  She becomes an outcast from both community and family, and this is especially indicated by Damiani in his use of door frames at this point in the picture.  Like John Wayne in The Searchers, Francesca is now outside society, and though she can stand in the frame and look in, she can no longer be a member, because she is now in direct opposition to that society and its treatment of all women, not just herself.

The male and female leads are mirrors of the opposite sides of the society in which they live.  This is accentuated by the casting of Muti and Orano, specifically due to their strikingly blue eyes.  The moment the two lock eyes at a sidewalk café, Damiani moves the camera in to an extreme closeup of Francesca’s eyes.  They are soft, caring, and full of love.  Contrast this with the intercut shots of Vito in the same scene.  The camera keeps him in long shot, aloof.  His blue eyes are piercing and hard.  In fact, Vito rarely looks straight at people in which he is in conflict.  By that same token, when an informer is shot in the street, Francesca runs toward him.  She becomes a witness to his death and cries for this man she doesn’t know in the slightest.  Francesca’s gaze embraces, Vito’s gaze eschews.  Despite this, despite their incompatibility and Vito’s seemingly mercenary motivations, there is a strong undercurrent of actual love between the two, though neither of them understand it; Vito because the concept is fairly alien to him, and Francesca because, despite her ordeal, she is still somewhat naïve in terms of how the world works.  It turns what could easily have been a standard story into a richly nuanced one, and one in which no one truly escapes unscathed, even when they’re completely in the right.  

MVT:  Tempted as I was to give it to Damiani, I have to give it here to Muti (whose real name is Francesca Rivelli, in case you were wondering).  With my predominant impression of this woman coming from the later Mike Hodges film, I can’t say I expected a lot from her in this film.  That said, she gives a performance which is powerful and affecting.  She is by turns coquettish and fierce, steadfast and vulnerable.  That this level of acting comes from an untested teenager makes it that much more striking.

Make Or Break:  The opening and closing shots of the film create an ellipsis and encapsulate the film both subtly and emphatically.  As the film opens, it depicts the lone woman in a city larger than her, but we are drawn to her, because she is enigmatic, unknown, and (we can only assume) beautiful.  It’s surface-level fascination.  As the film ends, it depicts the same lone woman in a city larger than her, but now we are drawn to her because we know the strength of her character.  The enigma has been revealed, and though she may be a bit bloodied, she is unbowed.  With her back to the camera, she turns away from her society and toward a (hopefully) better one.

Score:  7.75/10            

Street People (1976)

Let’s talk for a moment about some of the great sunken (facial) cheeks in cinema history.  Now, they can be of any nationality, but in my opinion, the best ones are from Europe, Britain to be more precise.  For my money, no one, but no one, had a greater set of sunken cheeks than Peter Cushing.  The same man who destroyed Dracula and reconstructed Frankenstein’s monster on a multitude of occasions also had a facial structure that could be as couthie as it could be menacing.  Sure, the indented cheek look has become indicative of the drug-addicted, zombified, and just plain dead (have a look at Lon Chaney’s iconic makeup for 1925’s The Phantom Of The Opera, if you doubt, and yes, I know the Phantom was not actually dead, but he was meant to evoke the look of a deceased person), but there was a time when the sunken-cheeked were held in a higher regard.  

Giving the impression of aristocracy, I always expect any (male) royalty to look like Mr. Cushing (even though according to Wikipedia, he was made an Officer in the Order Of The British Empire but was never knighted and therefore denied use of the honorary title “Sir,” a travesty, if you ask me) or Henry VIII (all chubby and beardy).  There have been runners up, to be sure.  Ernest Thesiger appeared as severe as the taut skin stretched across his skull.  Ron Wood looks like he belongs more in a chartered accountant office than behind a guitar.  But it is Roger Moore whose cheeks actually come closest to embodying the duality that Cushing’s did so effortlessly, I think.  For the life of me, though, I always think he’s sucking them in, sort of the cuckoo of the sunken cheek set.  Maybe it’s all in my head, maybe Moore’s cheeks are like that naturally, but I just don’t believe so. 

Mafia boss Salvatore (Ivo Garrani) receives a visit from nephew, lawyer, and polyglot Ulysses (Moore, whose British accent is explained with the exposition that he was sent to school in England) to go over some paperwork involved in finally making Sal’s business legit.  Meanwhile, a massive cross which was imported by Sal from Sicily is unloaded at the neighboring dock for the sake of the fishermen and blessed by priest and former pal of Salvatore, Frank (Ettore Manni).  That night, the crucifix is stolen from the dock by Nicoletta, Pano, and Fortunato (Fausto Tozzi, Pietro Martellanza, and the great Romano Puppo, respectively) and opened to reveal a cache of heroin with which the trio absconds.  Infuriated that someone would use something he was responsible for to smuggle drugs into America without his knowledge, Salvatore approaches capo di tutti capi Don Continenza (Ennio Balbo), who puts out the order to have the three scalawags caught.  Reaching out to frequent partner and Formula One race car driver Charlie (Stacy Keach), Ulysses sets about tracking down the heroin, the thieves, and the person behind it all.

Maurizio Lucidi’s Street People (aka Gli Esecutori aka The Sicilian Cross) is a sort of odd duck in the Eurocrime subgenre.  There is a lot of footage that genuinely appears to have been shot on location in California (predominantly San Francisco) and involving some complicated car stunt work (the car scenes apparently being the ones shot and directed by Guglielmo Garroni), which would seem to indicate that a decent chunk of change was spent in the production (although  I couldn’t locate anything definitive in regards to the film’s budget for this review).  The film also has a light, adventuresome ambience, which is only augmented by the interplay between Moore and Keach.  

By 1976, Moore had established his more tongue-in-cheek/campier take on James Bond in Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun, and his charming twofistedness bleeds into these proceedings.  By that same token, Keach had also established his gruff-but-endearing demeanor and sense of humor in such work as The Gravy Train (aka The Dion Brothers), and he is much more the rough side to Moore’s stiff upper lip.  Working against the film, though, is a script which is wildly convoluted and confused in keeping track of which characters are being referred to at any given time.  Granted, the version I watched is, by all accounts, the shorter of two by about thirteen minutes.  It’s within the realm of speculation that the protracted runtime clears up some aspects or constructs a more connected story, but since the longer of the two is seemingly the Swedish cut, I’d wager it’s just thirteen added minutes of hardcore pornography (just kidding).      

Anchored by the dichotomy between Moore and Keach, the film is filled with such juxtapositions.  The first and most obvious is that of the criminal versus the clergy.  Sal and Frank were close friends in Italy, but their paths diverged, so the two resent each other, though Sal still craves forgiveness and acceptance from his erstwhile amigo.  But as is typical in such films, it’s the priest who possesses the iron will to not buckle, no matter how he may feel about his friend deep down.  It’s interesting to note here that Frank really does feel nothing but contempt for Sal.  There is no redemption for the old Mafioso (at least in the eyes of this particular clergyman), despite his aim to reform and get out of the Organization.  As the search goes on, Charlie is placed as the street level everyman both in look and function.  He talks jive with an old drug pusher (trying to “get to Dream Street, Mama”) and his buddy Chico (Charlie threatens to spread the word that Chico is “a turkey deluxe”) who inhabits a strip club where the racer is well-known (the significance being that Charlie is a man who cannot control his desires/emotions like Ulysses can).  Of course, Ulysses is always meticulously dressed and always in control.  He is as skilled physically as Charlie, but his first weapon is his mind.  The two are further joined/separated by their motivations.  Charlie is doing this work simply for the bread.  He is mercenary in his actions.  Ulysses is also interested in the money, but he will work for free if it means his honor is threatened or he needs to take care of “a family matter” of one variety or another.    

   

It’s this sense of honor which is most at risk in Street People.  There is a pall of duplicity hanging over every frame of the film, and we expect every single character to have ulterior motives for what they do.  We expect them all to be villains at heart, and that they’re not (there’s really only one, to be honest) is an intriguing subversion of audience assumptions.  Even Ulysses is not completely honest with the people he claims to love like family, but this plot path ultimately just peters out and fades away.  When everything is revealed at the climax, though, it’s all so simple and relatively obvious, the whole excursion feels just a little like a waste.  That the film doesn’t hold together at its core isn’t the worst thing that could happen, since the individual elements/scenes work well enough in and of themselves that by the end credits, the film is not quite adiaphorous and in fact leans more toward satisfying than offputting.  But if you’re looking for coherence, seek it elsewhere.

MVT:  Keach’s onscreen portrayal of Charlie is just big enough without going too over the top.  His constant jabs at Ulysses (treating him with a sense of faux reverence and reminding him that he can be a pompous ass, a trait Ulysses seems to embrace) are an amusing way to define the relationship between the two.  Plus, any character that can talk as much jive as well as Charlie can has to be cool, right?

Make Or Break:  The Make is the scene where Charlie takes a car for a test drive around the streets of San Francisco (you can imagine what happens).  It’s funny, and well-shot, and impressive for what they accomplished onscreen.  It’s essentially a non-car-chase car chase scene, and it worked superbly for me on all levels.

Score:  6.25/10