This so-so portmanteau movie has value mainly for fans who long to see the sublime Silvana Mangano at the crossroads of her career. In the weaker sketches (notably Luigi Comencini's vulgar and interminable Eritrea) she comes across as the rather tawdry sex-symbol of countless dodgy international epics in the 50s, all produced by her husband Dino de Laurentiis. In the stronger episodes (particularly those two directed by uber-aesthete Mauro Bolognini) she metamorphoses into a svelte Art Movie icon, as she would become in her films for Visconti and Pasolini in the late 60s and 70s. If there is one moment where Bitter Rice ends and Death in Venice begins, this may well be it.
In fact, the second and longer Bolognini episode is good enough to justify sitting (or, at least, fast-forwarding) through the rest of this movie. A story of two unhappily-married strangers who share a romantic 'brief encounter' at Rome airport, 'Luciana' shimmers with the delicate low-key eroticism that was Bolognini's stock-in-trade. His earlier and shorter sketch, 'I miei cari,' encapsulates his career-long obsession with all-powerful women and hapless men - a chic bourgeoise visits her ailing husband in hospital, only to berate him for failing to fulfill her sexual needs!
Two mini-sketches by a young Tinto Brass - at once pre-politics and pre-porn - are amusing but insubstantial trifles. Comencini's is unalloyed drek, predictably enough, and Alberto Sordi offers solid but unexciting support in all five sketches. It's Mangano's movie, and she swaggers away with it in fabulous black-and-white outfits designed by Piero Gherardi. (He dressed La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2 and - most unforgettably of all - Juliet of the Spirits.) As a record of one exquisitely beautiful lady and her wardrobe, La Mia Signora gives good value. As a film.... Well, this is one star who was destined for higher things!
