Comedy, Italian Style

Abstract

Adulterio all’italiana (Adultery, Italian Style, 1966) stars two leading lights of Comedy, Italian Style—Nino Manfredi and Catherine Spaak—who play a married couple. The film is a sex comedy of (failed) gender equality. When Spaak discovers that Manfredi has been unfaithful, she agrees to forgive him only after she has had sex with someone else. In an unusual statement of gender equality for Comedy, Italian Style, she explains to him, “Women are equal to men, you know, you need to learn that. If two people love each other, there shouldn’t be anything that the husband can do that the wife can’t.” The film gives much more attention to Manfredi’s performance than Spaak’s. He discusses narrative developments with a friend, whereas Spaak’s character has no similar outlet to voice her schemes. The film also offers ample opportunities for Manfredi to display his comic performance skills. Particularly memorable is the sequence toward the end of the film with Manfredi in drag, as he tries to stop Spaak from sleeping with a company executive by seducing the man himself. Manfredi makes a very successful performance of femininity. One shot shows the executive eyeing up Manfredi’s legs and he is compared favorably to Ursula Andress. After a wonderful dance off scene between him and Spaak, where Manfredi wipes the floor with the actress, he gets his man.