Three Italian couples cross paths on a train to Monte Carlo and later find themselves implicated in the murder of a rich old woman. Although innocent, the more they lie and try to alibi -rather than simply tell the truth- the more they incriminate themselves...
This all-star Italian farce is really just a showcase for the comedic talents of Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, and Silvana Mangano. Manfredi and his wife travel to Monte Carlo to return a lost dog to its dowager owner and stumble upon her body; they flee but leave their suitcase behind. Gassman and Mangano play beauticians hoping to hit it big at roulette so they can open their own salon but lose their stake and steal Manfredi's suitcase which now contains the old lady's corpse. Alberto Sordi, a professional gambler who teams up with amateur Gassman, is placed at the scene of the crime because his wife, Dorian Gray, can't alibi him as she was entertaining another man at the time. How these characters interact and implicate the more they try to extricate themselves provides the film with a number of amusing "Italians abroad" situations but not enough to sustain any real momentum. Filmed in 1961 but not released in the U.S. until 1964, CRIMEN was produced by Mangano's husband, Dino De Laurentiis, and tries to invert the conventions of Agatha Christie whodunnits for laughs. Not laugh-out-loud funny by any means but OK in an unexceptional way.
This all-star Italian farce is really just a showcase for the comedic talents of Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, and Silvana Mangano. Manfredi and his wife travel to Monte Carlo to return a lost dog to its dowager owner and stumble upon her body; they flee but leave their suitcase behind. Gassman and Mangano play beauticians hoping to hit it big at roulette so they can open their own salon but lose their stake and steal Manfredi's suitcase which now contains the old lady's corpse. Alberto Sordi, a professional gambler who teams up with amateur Gassman, is placed at the scene of the crime because his wife, Dorian Gray, can't alibi him as she was entertaining another man at the time. How these characters interact and implicate the more they try to extricate themselves provides the film with a number of amusing "Italians abroad" situations but not enough to sustain any real momentum. Filmed in 1961 but not released in the U.S. until 1964, CRIMEN was produced by Mangano's husband, Dino De Laurentiis, and tries to invert the conventions of Agatha Christie whodunnits for laughs. Not laugh-out-loud funny by any means but OK in an unexceptional way.