Seven Beauties

Written and directed by Wertmüller this picaresque tragi-comedy set during the Fascist era has Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino a puffed-up small-time Neapolitan crook with seven sisters, each as ugly as sin, for whom, as head of the family, he regards himself responsible,  When one of them starts working as prostitute he kills and dismembers her pimp and is sent to an insane asylum as “The Monster of Naples”, a title which he regards with a good deal of pride.  War breaks out, he is enlisted in the army and as he cravenly connives to save his own hide, manages to get himself deeper and deeper into trouble, ending up in a Nazi concentration camp where he attempts to seduce the Teutonic female commandant

The '70s was Wertmüller's decade, and although feeling a little slow at times Seven Beauties was undoubtedly her most ambitious and richest and comedically blackest comment on man's ignobility with Giannini giving an priceless performance.

 

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