The Witches [Le Streghe] **** (1967, Silvana Mangano, Clint Eastwood, Annie Girardot, Francisco Rabal, Leslie French, Alberto Sordi, Totò, Ninetto Davoli, Pietro Tordi, Laura Betti, Helmut Berger) – Classic Movie Review 12,511

The 1967 Italian anthology film The Witches [Le Streghe] is a most enjoyable showcase for the talents of movie goddess Silvana Mangano in five star roles in five comic stories about witches. It is a true collector’s item. 

The rarely seen 1967 five-part Italian multi-drama anthology film The Witches [Le Streghe] is a most enjoyable showcase for the talents of movie goddess Silvana Mangano in five star roles in the five comic stories about witches, and is a true collector’s item.

The outstanding segment is The Witch Burned Alive [La Strega Bruciata Viva], which is directed by Luchino Visconti, with Mangano superb as a troubled movie star on an alpine vacation. Herein also is Helmut Berger’s film debut, as Hotel Page.

The Earth Seen from the Moon directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini is the other little winner, in which tramps Totò and Ninetto Davoli, without a line between them, invent a maid.

Also showing are Civic Sense [Civic Spirit] directed by Mauro Bolognini and The Girl from Sicily [The Sicilian Belle] by Franco Rossi, while Clint Eastwood stars in the final story A Night Like Any Other [An Evening Like the Others] directed by Vittorio De Sica.

It was suppressed in the US when United Artists bought the film and decided to keep it in its library vault and not release it in cinemas.

Silvana Mangano (21 April 1930 – 16 December 1989) was the wife of Dino De Laurentiis and had four children with him, including Veronica De Laurentiis and Raffaella De Laurentiis. They separated in 1983, and divorced in 1988.

She won the David di Donatello for Best Actress three times – for The Verona Trial (1963), The Witches (1967), and The Scientific Cardplayer (1973) – and the Nastro d’Argento for Best Actress twice.

Helmut Berger died on 18 May 2023, at the age of 78. He first met Luchino Visconti in 1964 who gave him his first acting role here, but he gained an Introducing credit and international fame as the amoral Martin von Essenbeck in Visconti’s The Damned (1969).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,511

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