Mafioso [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

In this crime comedy with heavy neorealist influence, Antonio (Alberto Sordi) is a Sicilian auto plant worker who has almost completely forsaken his southern Italian roots by marrying a fair-haired girl from the north and conceiving two children with her. As the movie opens, Antonio prepares to round up the family and take them on a vacation to his native town of Calamo, Sicily. Before he leaves, however, his boss summons him in and asks him to pass along a little gift to Don Vincenzo, a mob boss in Calamo. Antonio agrees to the plan, tentatively at first, but as the family gets closer and closer to the isle of Antonio's childhood, and shares lodging with Antonio's eccentric family, Sicilian pride and enthusiasm well up inside of this family patriarch, and he is,ultimately confronted with a request to carry out a hit for Vincenzo. Dino DeLaurentiis produced and Alberto Lattuada directed. Though the film was long forgotten, it received a U.S. theatrical release by Rialto in 2007 and netted absolutely stunning reviews. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Subtitle: Eng
• Features:
  • Ritratti d'autore - A 1966 interview with director Alberto Lattuada by filmmaker Daniele Luchetti
  • New video interviews with the director's wife, actress Carla Del Poggio (Variety Lights), and son, Alessandro Lattuada
  • Trailers for the original Italian release and the 2007 U.S. rerelease
  • Gallery of promotional caricatures by artist Keiko Kimura
  • New and improved English subtitles translation
  • Plus: New Essays by Phillip Lopate and Roberto Chiesi and a 1982 interview with Alberto Lattuada

AWARDS

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Foreign Film - 1964

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Alberto Sordi - Antonio Badalamenti
       Ugo Attanasio - Don Vincenzo
       Cinzia Bruno - Donatella

• Director:

  Alberto Lattuada

• Producer:

  Antonio Cervi

• Screenwriter:

  Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, Age, Furio Scarpelli

• Cinematographer:

  Armando Nannuzzi

• Composer (Music Score):

  Piero Piccioni, Nino Rota

• Editor:

  Nino Baragli

• Art Director:

  Carlo Egidi

• Executive Producer:

  Dino de Laurentiis

• Short Story Author:

  Bruno Caruso

REVIEW:

• Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso (1962) was a movie so far ahead of its era, that -- looking at it 45 years after its release -- it seems at times as though it had been made in a time warp. After all, who made comedies about the mob -- even the Sicilian mob -- in 1962? And in a neo-realist style, to boot? The basic plot is simple enough, about Nino (Alberto Sordi), a man of Sicilian birth who has made good in northern Italy as an auto plant foreman in Milan, who decides it's time for his wife and their two young children to meet his parents and family -- and also his friends from the little town in Sicily where he grew up, who also constitute "family." And gradually, as he falls back in with his boyhood companions and family acquaintances, Nino's blissful, "holy fool" approach to life brushes up against the harsher aspects of the social order in his Sicilian town -- he must take a long trip and then a short trip, spirited away one night to do a favor for the mob chieftain who controls his town and the surrounding area; a favor that is contingent upon his wartime experience using weapons. The movie is a quietly, subtly sly and knowing as its hero is naive and oblivious, and therein lies its center -- the disconnect between Nino's wide-eyed innocence, perfectly embodied by Sordi, and Lattuada's darkly, comically sinister vision, in which even a plate overflowing with fat-encrusted red meat takes on darkly threatening overtones. The black-and-white photography by Armando Nannuzzi only enhances the shadows and the humorously ominous, comical little touches that decorate Nino's Sicilian sojourn. Given an important section of the shooting that comes up late in the movie -- which we will not reveal here -- which was shot separately from the rest of the picture (and under near-siege conditions), there is some credit due, past that deserved by Lattuada, that will probably never be properly accorded. The movie was released in 1962 and barely seen in the United States, where distributors didn't have a clue about how to handle its dark humor -- before disappearing for 45 years, until its re-release in 2007. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi