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SEDUCED AND ABANDONED (1964)
Directed by: Pietro Germi.
Produced by: Franco Cristaldi.
Written by: Age-Scarpelli, Germi & Luciano Vincenzoni.
Director of Photography: Aiace Parolin.
Edited by: Roberto Cinquini.
Music by: Carlo Rustichelli.
Released by: Criterion Collection.
Language: Italian with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Italy. 117 min. Not Rated.
With: Stefania Sandrelli, Saro Urzi, Aldo Puglisi, Lando Buzzanca, Lola Braccini & Leopoldo Trieste.
DVD Features: “Commedia all'Italiana, Germi Style” featurette of new interviews with screenwriters Furio Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni & Italian film scholar Mario Sesti. Interviews with actors Stefania Sandrelli & Lando Buzzanca. Stefania Sandrelli screen test. Trailer. Newly restored high-definition digital transfer. New & improved English subtitle translation. Essay by film scholar Irene Bignardi.

Director Pietro Germi has been forgotten because he, unlike most Italian filmmakers of his day, never declared he was a communist. That’s screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni’s theory on why Germi has been “forgotten.” It might also be because the films Germi made in his prime were satires taking aim at Italian social mores and customs. Today, Divorce Italian Style (1961) and Seduced and Abandoned (1964) may seem further removed considering the vast changes in Italian culture in the last 40 years, after the country’s transition from rural to industrial.

Doubtlessly, contemporaries like Federico Fellini or Ettore Scola have overshadowed Germi, but his profile is on the upswing. He was the focus of a retrospective at the 1999 New York Film Festival and just last year Criterion released a sterling edition of his Academy Award-winning Divorce. Both in its tone and in the precision of its aim, Seduced is equal to its predecessor (which is also set in a Sicilian small town).

On a hot and lazy afternoon, virginal 16-year-old Agnese (Stefania Sandrelli) first fights off but then gives into the blunt advances of her older sister’s boyfriend, while her family takes a siesta. This summary is not revealing too much; all of the above happens within the first minutes, and frequently, the story hurtles at a dizzying pace. Whereas Germi’s target in his first comedy was marriage, filmed when divorce was still illegal in Italy, here it’s the double standard that “The Man has the right to ask; the woman has the duty to refuse.” Agnese doesn’t and now her family’s reputation is at stake.

Germi shares with Billy Wilder a similar cynical tone matched with stellar storytelling. Sardonically observant, Divorce and Seduced are in the same category as The Apartment. Anyone with even a passing interest in Wilder should, at the very least, rent both of these Germi comedies.

DVD Extras: It’s a bit bewildering to read in Irene Bignardi’s essay that “Germi doesn’t like his characters, except for maybe Agnese herself – but not in the beginning…depicting the girl as a sensuous young animal of dubious virtue.” Huh? It’s only because Germi bestows benevolent touches to what would otherwise be stereotypes that his film is so palatable. Otherwise the tone would have been more caustic, if not vitriolic, instead of being both incisive and gently mocking (especially in the handling of a sad sack, penniless baron, who would succeed in hanging himself if only his ceiling wasn’t rotting). In fact, Agnese trembles during the seduction scene, darting away from Peppino’s advances before she rather easily succumbs. The only time Agnese appears as a cunning vixen is in Peppino’s self-promoting account of their tryst.

The “Commedia all’italiana: Germi Style,” featurette briefly traces the transformation of Italy’s neorealism period of the post-war years to the comedies of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Screenwriter Furio Scarpelli singles out writer Sergio Amidei (Open City and Paisan) as pivotal to this transition. In 1950, he wrote A Midsummer Holiday (also known as Sunday in August). Scarpelli calls it the first important work marking this passage. Here’s hoping Criterion (or perhaps NoShame) is taking note. Kent Turner
August 22, 2006