The Pizza Triangle

This is one of the best Italian comedies ever made. Known both as A DRAMA OF JEALOUSY and THE PIZZA TRIANGLE, it is an engrossing farce about a love triangle in modern Rome. Bricklayer Marcello Mastroianni meets flower-seller Monica Vitti at a political demonstration. He decides to ditch his fat, older wife for her. All goes well until a pizza, in the shape of a heart, arrives. It is sent to the girl by a young pizza-chef, played by Giancarlo Giannini. The pizza man becomes Vitti's lover, and poor Marcello goes mad with jealousy and attempts suicide, as do each of the other two at some point in this hysterical soap opera. The three lead performers, among the best that the Italian cinema has ever had to offer, are magnificent, as is the direction and comic timing by Ettore Scola, whose DOWN AND DIRTY this would make an appropriate companion-piece to. One could call this movie "commedia all'italiana" with peppers, mushrooms, and cheese.