Seven Beauties [Pasqualino Settebellezze] **** (1975, Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler) – Classic Movie Review 10,894

Writer-producer-director Lina Wertmuller’s very extreme, disturbing and bizarre tale of sadomasochism, the 1975 Italian film Seven Beauties [Pasqualino Settebellezze], focuses on the life of an Italian crook and lothario called Pasqualino or Pasquale Frafuso (the admirable Giancarlo Giannini), living in Naples with his seven fat sister beauties, who survives the brutalities of a Nazi concentration camp after seducing a fat commandant (Shirley Stoler).

Wertmuller’s remarkable World War Two wartime comedy drama film deservedly enjoyed great success with American art house audiences. Like it or lump it, it’s a true original. Fernando Rey also stars as Pedro.

Wertmuller was Oscar nominated as Best Director, the first woman to be nominated for Best Director. It was nominated for four Oscars. Giancarlo Giannini was Oscar nominated as Best Actor, Wertmuller was Oscar nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen and it was Oscar nominated as Best Foreign Language Film.

The ratio of film shot to film used was 50 to one.

It was shown in both subtitled and English-dubbed versions in the US.

At the Oscars, the years 1976 (Face to Face and Seven Beauties) and 2018 (Roma and Cold War) are the only instances in which two foreign language films were nominated for Best Director in the same year.

It runs 116 minutes.

Also in the cast are Piero Di Iorio, Elena Fiore, Enzo Vitale, Roberto Herlitzka and Francesca Marciano.

It is shot in Technicolor by Tonino Delli Colli.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,894

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