DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE (1961)

Nowadays, many mainstream comedies have a dark edge, but in the early 60's, the black comedy in film was, I suspect, something fairly new. In this early example of the genre, Marcello Mastroianni plays a member of an old Siclian family which has fallen on hard times. He's stuck in a marriage with a woman (Daniela Rocca) who is constanly demanding attention and affection, and he finds himself in love with his 16-year-old cousin(Stefania Sandrelli) who lives just across the courtyard from him (and on whom more than one frustrated man spies). Just as it seems that she's interested in him, her father sends her off to a convent school, but Mastroianni is determined to have her eventually. Divorce was not legal in Sicily, but he realizes that the code of male honor would allow him to get rid of his wife by killing her if he caught her cheating on him, so he sets out to set up just such a situation. An old boyfriend of Rocca's (Leopoldo Trieste) turns up in town and Mastroianni helps them rekindle their old feelings, although the sexy maid almost derails the plans by setting her cap for Trieste herself. Further complications arise when we discover that Trieste's wife has a similar plan in mind. Even though some people do wind up dead, and some not as happy as they imagined they might be, the movie keeps a light tone throughout. Early on, Mastroianni imagines some scenarios in which his wife would drown in quicksand or get caught in the middle of a Mafia shootout, and he imagines what the judge will say at his future trial for murder. There's a fun reference to Mastroianni's previous film, LA DOLCE VITA--when the scandalous film comes to town, the entire populace shows up to watch it, including Mastroianni. This comedy of murder and morals won't seem shocking to today's viewers, but I imagine it must have been 40 years ago. [TCM]