SEVEN BEAUTIES Movie Review

Pasqualino Settebellezze
Pasqualino: Seven Beauties

During World War II, Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini), a small-time, low-level Italian mafioso with seven ugly sisters (the “seven beauties”) to support, finds himself in a German prison camp under the tyrannical control of a grotesquely fat guard (Shirley Stoler). Using his sleazy but highly practical con-man's gifts, Pasqualino does whatever he must to survive his ordeal. Seven Beauties was the art house phenomenon of 1976, with nationally renowned critics almost literally tripping over each other to be quoted in the New York Times ads. One compared Seven Beauties to Citizen Kane, another to Tokyo Story. The latter claimed that the film propelled its director, Lina Wertmüller, into the “highest regions of cinematic art.” In fairness, that critic wrote the most intelligently reasoned defense of the film, but I like his review a lot more than the picture. It's been about twenty years since I've seen it, but I recall Seven Beauties to be an obnoxious, misogynistic freak show bursting at the seams with self-aggrandizing rationalizations designed to let its viewers off the hook for whatever they may be feeling guilty over. If that guilt happened to be over using concentration camps for attention-getting slapstick, as Wertmüller has done, well, I'm still not in the mood to let her—or her Pasqualino—off the hook. The film turned out to be Wertmüller's last gasp, however; though she's made films since, none has been “bold” enough to be declared the new Kane, or even the new Seven Beauties. As for Shirley Stoler, I found her earlier work in The Honeymoon Killers and her subsequent stint on Pee-Wee's Playhouse more gratifying. Considering the smug obscenity at the core of Seven Beauties, it's ironic that Pee-Wee Herman was the one who was fired on a morals charge.

NEXT STOP … Love and Anarchy, Swept Away…, The Honeymoon Killers

1976 116m/C IT Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore, Enzo Vitale; D: Lina Wertmuller; W: Lina Wertmuller; C: Tonino Delli Colli. Nominations: Academy Awards ‘76: Best Actor (Giannini), Best Director (Wertmuller), Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign-Language Film. VHS, LV COL