THE PIZZA TRIANGLE (1970)

Adelaide (Monica Vitti) has just been stabbed to death in the street, and as two men, Oreste and Nello, act out how it happened for the police, we get the full backstory. Adelaide, a florist, sees Oreste (Marcello Mastroianni) one night at a street carnival. Though she's young and middle-class and he's a married, over-40 construction worker who has passed out from too much drink, sparks fly and soon they're sleeping together. He even leaves his wife (who, in a comical scene, Adelaide mistakes for his mother) and they settle into a relationship until young young and handsome Nello (Giancarlo Giannini), a pizza chef and friend of Oreste's, starts flirting with her. She tries sleeping with Nello on the sly, but Oreste finds out and the result is fisticuffs. She proposes they try a three-way, but that doesn't work either. Things deteriorate to the point of a street fight, in which she is accidentally killed by Oreste. Despite the tragic tone of the above plot summary, most of this plays out like a comedy, intended, I assume, as a satire on European romantic melodramas. Many characters, the principals as well as supporting players (and the occasional random bystander), speak directly to the camera, as in Woody Allen's later ANNIE HALL. During a break-up scene, Adelaide shouts out melodramatically as her lover leaves, but she's actually just sneezing.  Adelaide's visit to a psychiatrist plays out like a parody of an analysis scene, ending with her saying in frustration, "Am I psychotic or evil?" In an overblown proclamation, the narrator, referring to Adelaide, says that "the pen of a Zola or a Nabokov would not be sufficient to describe her perfidiousness!" If there's a villainous force here, though, it's not a woman but what we would call toxic masculinity. There is a political background involving protest marches by Communists, and the ending actually is rather sad, but this is best enjoyed as an energetic and sly comedy. All three leads are excellent—Vitti is always compelling, and it's fun to see a young Giannini, best known as the roughneck lead in SWEPT AWAY. Also known as A DRAMA OF JEALOUSY AND OTHER THINGS and JEALOUSY ITALIAN STYLE. Pictured, from left, are Mastroianni, Vitti and Giannini. [TCM]