Alberto Sordi (1920-2003) became a star in Italy and beyond in Fellini's "The White Sheik" (1952) and "I Vitelloni" (1953) and a string of fairly dark 1960s and 70s comedies (and received acclaim and a Golden Globe nominations for his performance in "Best of Enemies" and "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" in English and won one for "Il diavolo" (The Devil)).

Despite its title, "Mafioso" (1962) plays for more than its first half as a light-hearted portrayal of a Sicilian native, Antonio "Nino" Badalamenti (Sordi) who has moved to the industrial north and is an efficiency expert in a (Fiat?) factory. He is rushing home to pick up his blonde Nordic wife Marta (Norma Bengell) and two blonde daughters for a vacation trip, his first return to Sicily in a long time. He wants his wife and children to see Sicily—the sun, the lemons, the oranges, the feasts.

Marta is appalled by the backwardness and restraints on women and the silent judgmentalism of her husband's family. Gradually, she relaxes and is won over, particularly by the beach and sea.

The viewer, but not Nino sees him becoming enmeshed in the hospitality of the local mafia chief, Don Vincenzo (the very corpulent Ugo Attanasio).  Don Vincenzo settles Antonio's father's land dispute on favorable terms and compliments Nino's his family.

"Mafioso" was made a decade before "The Godfather" and even longer before "The Sopranos." Is it possible that 1962 viewers would not have found the calling in of a favor to the patron very predictable? I knew where things were going in terms of plot dynamics, though not in geography.

There are still absurdities in showing out Nino carrying out the mission that he must undertake, but if the movie was intended as a comedy, it is a very dark one indeed. There is a repetition of "good boy" at the end that I thought particularly good. Among other things, it involves a pen that Nino rushed off with trying to get out of the factory at the beginning of the movie.

Sordi is great, whether Nino is scared, workmanlike, desperately trying to smooth over conflicts, or puffed up. The cinematography of Armando Nannuzzi (who shot  films for Visconti and Pasolini and the epic "Waterloo") includes some very noirishly shot night-time meetings, though a great deal of the movie takes place in bright Sicilian daylight. The black and white details show both northern Italy and Sicily of roughly 40 years ago, in something of the reverse of the voyage of "Rocco and His Brothers" (Luchino Visconti's neo-verrismo masterpiece with Alain Delon as the martyr of family upheaval in the rapid social change of Italy after WWII.)


The Criterion DVD includes a 1996 biographical retrospective  interview of director Alberto Lattuada (1913-2005), who worked with Fellini on "Variety Lights" ("Mafioso" is the only film directed by him I've seen) and a trailer.


©2009, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD