Siete veces mujer

Boasting swinging '60s ambiance, handsome set design, and a sumptuous score, "Woman Times Seven" is a somewhat underwritten set of sketches with Shirley MacLaine playing seven different roles. Some are more rewarding than others, but stick with it to the end and you will find much to enjoy.

Other than MacLaine, the common elements in the film are the score, the Paris setting, and a common thread of romantic hopes found wanting. The subtitle mentions "7 Stories Of Adultery," which is more than a bit of exaggeration.

In the first sketch, Shirley plays a mourning widow being wooed during her husband's funeral procession by a bearded Peter Sellers. I watched this film just to see Sellers, but his segment is the slightest and second-weakest in the film. Basically, it's a one- joke premise where the viewer is left to wonder whether Paulette (MacLaine's character here) is really grief-stricken or merely holding out for a better deal from her new, rich suitor. It doesn't so much end as fizzle out.

The next two segments are similarly thin plot devices. Maria Theresa (MacLaine) finds her husband with another woman and decides to find a man on the street to be unfaithful with, even if she has to be a prostitute for a night. It's a bit shaky in its exposition but manages a few laughs. Then, as Linda, we see rather a great deal of MacLaine as a brainy nudist who leads two horny men to her apartment to discuss art and poetry. Other than getting naked (in ways that shield her from us if not the guys), Linda doesn't make much with the time given her, and the sequence limps to a wet, predictable conclusion.

But just as one is about to give up on this movie as a slim curio of its time, it finds its legs. In the next sequence, Edith (MacLaine) is the forlorn wife of a writer too caught up in the fantasy of his latest creation, the capricious Simone (MacLaine actually plays eight roles in this film as we see her as Simone in dream sequences). Edith goes all out to win back his interest. It's not that clever, but it is endearing, with MacLaine showing depth as the wistful, dowdy companion of a faithful but distracted man.

Director Vittorio De Sica was a legend for films made well before this one, and may have been coasting here, offering up bon-bons in place of substance. But he finds nice ways to give the film interest even in the slacker parts. In the Paulette sequence, he plays up how differently younger and older people react to the passing cortège, the younger ones carefree and bored, the older ones respectful and oddly intent. In the Edith sequence, there's a moment in a supermarket when we see her talking to a beautiful woman who marvels at her husband's passionate prose. The woman stands in front of a counter full of cookies, while Edith stands in front of a row of dog biscuits.

The last three sequences are the heart of the film's charm and lasting power, each comedic in different ways, each giving MacLaine worthwhile characters to play. Eve is the rich consort of a captain of industry, so bent on making a big splash at the opera in a new gown that she arranges for a bomb to go off in the car of a fashion rival. Her husband is suitably aghast.

"You have never taken a risk for me, ever!" she whines at him. It's a fun, farcical dig at high finance and haute couture that makes its pointed digs with gentle good humor.

As Marie in the penultimate sequence, MacLaine plots her own suicide in a seedy hotel with her squeamish lover (Alan Arkin). Here the humor is of the black variety, but rather effective, especially as they argue over which way to do themselves in. Romeo and Juliet they aren't. This may be her best acted part of the film, as she's quite funny in a role that could be deadly serious.

The last, and by far best sequence, features a woman named Jean (MacLaine) who alternately laughs at and lusts over a man (Michael Caine) who follows her around the City of Light to her husband's apartment. "He's got that little-lost-boy look going for him," purrs Jean's more worldly companion Claudie (Anita Ekberg). The sequence ends memorably and cleverly, but really benefits from a second viewing, once you have learned the Caine character's secret. Our last look of MacLaine staring out a window at footprints in the snow has an affecting beauty all its own.

Add to that Riz Ortolani's music and the visual treat of Paris itself shot during a time it truly was the City of Light, and there's a lot to enjoy. Even if a couple of sequences are not gems in themselves, better material follows, and all is presented with ample, lasting charm.

Shirley plays the lead in seven different stories in Paris in different love situations. The best one is the sixth, a marvellous travesty of Marcel Carné's "Le jour se lève" with Jean Gabin and Arletty, and almost identically in the same squalid hotel, where Shirley and Alan Arkin intend to do themselves in, but there are arguments about it. This is great fun and Cesare Zavattini and Vittorio de Sica at their best. The other episodes are rather uneven, but the second one, where Shirley comes home to find her husband (Rossano Brazzi) in bed with another woman, whereupon she runs out in the streets in a panic and happen to a bunch of prostitutes in the park, who decide to help her, while her husband comes running out in the streets after her in his pyjamas, is also well written. The tendency of the others is that you will eventually get a bit tired of finding only Shirley MacLaine in all of them - there is a little of Anita Ekberg in the last of them, but not much. All other characters are subordinate. It is entertaining on the whole, but you don't laugh much, while instead you find some situations rather awkward and painful, like the luxurious opera spectacle with Patrick Wymark in a typical role of his. Peter Sellers is excellent in the very first episode, which is the briefest. In brief, this is not one of de Sica-Zavattini's best works, but it has some excellent highlights.

Woman Times Seven is a collection of vignettes about seven random women (not adultery, as the synopsis claims) all played by Shirley MacLaine, and all the women are different. That's the whole point, they are different - one is shy, one is a prude, one is a bitch, one is even boring! They end up in different situations, some ridiculous, some poignant. There is no over-arching thread or moral to bind them together. They are character studies more than plots, something American audiences may not appreciate. Some vignettes are left unresolved, some are broad comedies, some are bittersweet. If you are waiting for the punchline it isn't always here, but sometimes it is, leaving the overall flow bumpy and uneven.

I'm not a fan of vignette films, but it's so difficult to find interesting female characters in today's films. How refreshing to see many different "types" here - even if all played by the same actress. MacLaine is good. She's thoughtful about each character and steps out of her usual pixie/harlot role, but taken together it feels like a gimmick - the sum is not greater than the parts. The characters suit the style of each story, so some have gravity and others are comic caricatures that serve the situation - another aspect that makes the film seem uneven. Within each vignette MacLaine does a fine job, using her considerable talents as a dancer to physically embody each woman differently, but we're not with these women long enough to see any metamorphosis.

The first is a grieving widow opposite Peter Sellers whose words of comfort keep turning to inappropriate propositions. The scene belongs completely to Sellers, and it's the weakest of the stories.

The second character is a prudish wife who after discovering her husband and her best friend in bed, runs out of the house vowing to have sex with the first random man she meets. Instead she finds sympathy in a group of prostitutes who exchange war stories about love and men. For all their sexual experience they don't seem to have a better grasp on relationships, and an instant sisterhood bridges their social divide.

The third is a modern sex farce about a beautiful UN translator who has become so jaded about men that she has idolized her platonic relationship with a gay roommate. Meanwhile she reads poetry in the nude and invites two playboy dignitaries to her bed while she shows them slides of modernist paintings. the handsome men humor her bizarre quirks while trying to get the other to leave, a testament to men putting up with any amount of femcrazy to get laid.

The fourth character is the dull housewife who feels she must compete with the unrealistic fantasy woman of her husband's novels. She begins to embody the outlandish descriptions, wearing wigs and costumes, laughing and singing and being so impetuous that everyone begins to think she is having a mental breakdown. This is the first episode that feels like a real story arc, moving from awkward comedy to a heartbreaking moment as she realizes she has gone too far, crying out "I'm not crazy , I'm just in love!"

The fifth vignette is my favorite. MacLaine plays a society bitch who is mortified to discover a rival will be wearing the same gown to the opera. The stakes escalate as their powerful husbands get involved, then their husbands' corporations as the two Dames flex their power, neither willing to budge. MacLaine is spectacular shifting gears between barking orders at her husband's employees, giving condescending lectures to the maid, looking absolutely fabulous, while plotting violent sabotage. It's lavish and campy and evil. So much fun!

The next episode clunks. MacLaine and Alan Arkin are lovers trying to negotiate a suicide pact but keep coming up with excuses to not go through with it. The dialog feels improv, and it all takes place in realtime in one room, like a one-act play or a TV skit. It's a case where the vignette before it is so lavish and fun this scene drags in comparison.

In the final piece, a shy housewife and a glamorous model friend meet for lunch and they are followed by a young man. As they separate the shy woman is thrilled the man follows her instead of her friend. She wanders home slowly hoping to make the moment last. The tone is innocent and bittersweet (but also a little creepy by today's standards of harassment and stalking - there is a twist at the end that lets us know he will not come back later, break into her house, and murder them all).

What's remarkable with Woman Times Seven is individual moments that stick with you long after the movie has gone. It never gels together as a whole, but I feel that's a problem with all vignette films. There are some interesting situations and characters who probably are not compelling enough for a whole movie, and maybe that's the idea. Most of these women are having small personal moments that define them. It's individual portraits done in a charming way, with a big talent Hollywood actress but with European flavor. We get to follow some pre-feminist characters we would not normally be allowed to see. They are fallible, self-contradictory, and immature.

While there are observations about the different sexual expectations of men and women, it's dismissive to say this is a movie about "adultery" or sexual romps, as if it is another slice of '60s Euro-erotica. Instead of cheesecake, many of the women are portrayed unflatteringly or for laughs. The viewer sees through the illusion they do not see themselves, and there-in lies the opportunity to say dozens of small truths through comedy: it *is* crazy to try to become someone's fantasy. The shyest person could crave dangerous attention. Love is NOT worth dying over, but also death is not the end of love....

Woman Times Seven may not be the greatest film IL' Shirl has ever made ("Being There" comes to mind), and it may not be her high water mark for sheer feminine beauty (the scene where she's on the elevating psychiatrist's couch in "What A Way To Go" certainly takes that prize), but just to look at her as the grieving widow, to the surprise revelation of that cute little bow at the back of her apron in such a strategic place, to how she CLEARLY was the most spectacular femme at the opera...ah, what a piece of work is woman!

In this day and age, where women think that they don't need makeup, or stockings, or stiletto pumps, where hair is considered attractive if it looks like one just got out of bed and used fingers alone, and before they wake up and realize that tattoos and piercings are sooo trampy, that quick-cut set of takes where she is at once the house mouse in her little peignoir and just as instantly the SAME WOMAN is the man-eating vixen Simone is CLEAR CUT PROOF that with the right grooming and wardrobe ANY woman can be a goddess. I've been saying THAT for years, but no one but the cinematic cognoscenti would even know what I'm talking about.

Beyond that, the flick has EXACTLY the right taste of Sixties-flick, and that's enough said. Remember: Heaven will be all-Sixties forever.

JTC

Even the old bad films to me are a hundred times better than what I see today. Although it is a silly film, Shirley is fabulous and looks wonderful in each story line. I love foreign films made in Paris, France and Italy so this was a treat with all the fabulous location shots. Peter Sellers of course is genius as he always was!

I never saw this film and I am an old movie buff so I was glad to see some one in particular. Vittorio DeSica made this film in 1967 which appeared to be slightly different than some of his films.

I still think the film is worth seeing if you are a Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine fan.