The Profiteer Movie Review

For reasons that escape me, The Profiteer played just twice at the Cannes Film Festival before it was banned in Italy. The film is successful on many levels: as comedy, as satire, as a portrait of the opportunist as a young man. The scenes from a funeral and a procession at Lourdes are both apt and hilarious. Giancarlo Marinangeli makes a devilish debut as a mean little man who befriends the title character. Sergio Nasca's remarkably impressive first film builds to a surprising, highly dramatic finish. Of the cast, only Al Cliver, Janet Agren, and Leopoldo Trieste are familiar to video buffs. Cliver and Agren haven't made any other unbad movies as far as I know, but character actor Trieste has worked with Fellini, Germi, Campanile, Petri, Bellochio, Rossi, Coppola, and Tornatore. AKA: Il Saprofita.

1974 97m/C IT Al Cliver, Janet Agren, Leopoldo Trieste; D: Sergio Nasca; W: Sergio Nasca; C: Giuseppe Aquari.