Perfectly adorable

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Another great film of the great Alberto Sordi, another great film directed by Dino Risi. Franca Valeri and Alberto Sordi, they are a strange couple, wife and husband, which... but, watch the movie! You'll discover how great Alberto was plus you'll discover many other great Italian actors. Franca Valeri is exceptional as Elvira Almiraghi, the rich wife. The beautiful Leonora Ruffo is the mistress of Alberto "Cretinetti" Nardi, the character of Sordi.

Please be aware that this is one of the funniest movies ever produced. Alberto Sordi is here at his best comedy, and he is surrounded by a cast of great characters, portrayed by a group of wonderful, lesser-known Italian actors (Franca Valeri, the wife, a clear cut above everybody else). You really should not pass on this movie. The story it's even a great depiction of a specific Italian period (the late 50's, early 60's of the industrial growth after WW2). Some of the greatest talents of Italian cinema, namely director Dino Risi and writer Rodolfo Sonego, are featured in the credits: and they are probably in what could be considered their prime. So you should do yourself a favor, and watch this movie.

With this, I’ve begun an 8-film tribute to Italian director Risi – who passed away recently at the venerable age of 91. It features one of the country’s foremost stars in Alberto Sordi: personally, I tend to find his antics overbearing – but this is clearly a cut above his average vehicle and, accordingly, he delivers an excellent performance as an incompetent but proud lower-class man who only achieves success after marrying eminent society woman Franca Valeri (a popular comic actress who here matches Sordi, dominating and mocking her spouse – calling him “Cretinetti” (little idiot ) – at every turn, as well as being something of a philanthropist while refusing to finance any of Sordi’s own business schemes!).Running parallel to its sharply-observed satire on industrialization and the class struggle, the film is a black comedy detailing the hero’s brush with the titular status. Starting with his recounting a dream where he joyously attends Valeri’s funeral, it later transpires that a train she was supposed to travel on has been derailed (so he takes over his wife’s legacy and starts making all kinds of changes, as well as installing working-girl mistress Leonora Ruffo in his house)…except that Valeri missed the fateful train – shades of Laurel & Hardy’s SONS OF THE DESERT (1933) in reverse! – and, to her husband’s horror, turns up at their residence in the thick of the funeral arrangements!! Going through a period of meditation at a convent (an incident probably borrowed from Luis Bunuel’s EL [1952]!), he devises an elaborate plot – involving a trio of associates – in order to get rid of her once and for all…but, of course, this too goes tragically awry (especially for Sordi himself!!). A very typical product of its era, the film is necessarily talky and frenzied in tone – but, nonetheless, emerges a stylish and often inspired comic offering (notably the bare-back dress worn by Ruffo throughout the funeral reception, exasperating a usually bubbly industrialist no end…but which doesn’t prevent the latter from making the girl his own mistress, if only for a short while!).Incidentally, the star had a number of similar generically-titled vehicles – such as THE BACHELOR (1955) and THE HUSBAND (1958) – which would suggest a form of loose trilogy, though they all had different directors (and he played a different character in each). By the way, I have several other Sordi titles in my “Unwatched VHS” pile – including a quartet he directed himself…

This is a really funny movie with the great Alberto Sordi (at his best) and the incredible Franca Valeri. It's another portrait of the defects and geniality of some Italian people. Sordi is quite specialized in showing our egoism and hypocrisy. Il vedovo (the widowed) is Alberto Sordi, a little and stupid entrepreneur who is married with the rich and smart Franca Valeri. He wishes the death of her wife as he is often humiliated by her due to his stupidity. She is smart and makes a lot of money with her business. He is always asking her for some money and tries to be good with her just for this. It's very funny also his relationship with his attendant, his former superior during the War whom now he considers like a slave servant (it's so true that cowardly people is bad with subordinates and bootlicker with superiors!). The entrepreneur starts thinking of killing his wife to get the money, but his plans are destined to be changed.Very very funny, not one of the best movies ever of Alberto Sordi but one of the best of Franca Valeri. Absolutely worth watching. A little gem of Italian Comedy. Thanks Dino Risi!