BOCCACCIO ' (70) Movie Review

An army of screenwriters—and three of Italy's most celebrated directors—collaborated with decidedly mixed results on this three-part updating of The Decameron. Federico Fellini opens the show with The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, in which a Milquetoast is outraged by a milk poster—a billboard actually—on which Anita Ekberg's mammaries push the dairy's bovine advertising thrust about as far as it can go. Luchino Visconti is next up with a segment featuring Romy Schneider as the stunning wife of a wealthy man who's excited by the idea of taking a mistress—so Schneider convinces him to keep the home fires burning by paying her to play the part. Sophia Loren steals the show in the final episode, The Raffle, directed by Vittorio De Sica. The prize attraction of a small, traveling carnival, Loren takes the concept of the “kissing booth” to a whole new dimension for the lucky raffle winner in each small town on the tour. One of the many multi-part films to come out of Italy in the 1960s, Boccaccio ‘70 is by its very nature an uneven affair; it's diverting enough, though, with memorable little glories sprinkled generously throughout.

NEXT STOP … Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Spirits of the Dead, Love at Twenty

1962 145m/C IT Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider, Tomas Milian, Sophia Loren, Peppino de Filippo, Luigi Gillianni; D: Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini; W: Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Cesare Zavattini; C: Otello Martelli, Giuseppe Rotunno; M: Nino Rota, Armando Trovajoli. VHS NO