High Infidelity (1964) User Reviews

Episode Film Depends on Several Twists

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 20 February 2021]

The weakest of these four slickly directed segments about marital infidelity is the one directed by Luciano Salce with a shrill Monica Vitti lounging about and whining about the two different men she has to choose between, it falls completely flat. The other three episodes like sometimes a good short story does rely on unexpected twists impossible to describe without them being spoilers so here goes: The opening episode directed by Franco Rossi who made several features about close male to male relationships pivots on a misunderstanding.At a beach resort a handsome youth played by John Philip Law takes a look at a married couple.The distinguished Nino Manfredi assumes the youth is interested in his disaffected wife but if you pay close attention you will be ahead of the plot when it gets to the revelation that Law instead covets the husband.The aftermath is handled with sophistication and subtlety. The second episode by Elio Petri plays with setting the two characters against modernist architecture almost like Antonioni does and there s a stunning sequence where the woman Charles Aznavour has picked up played by Claire Bloom moves nervously back and forth against a set of sweeping curtains opening onto a sea view.The twist here is that when Aznavour returns at night to his wife after his Sin in the Afternoon, the woman he was with turns out to be his wife, who is psychologically didturbed and can only get it on if they pretend they are complete strangers. The third segment by Monicelli has a more complex and ironic scenario and is somewhat darker in its mise en scene (also a different cinematographer from the others, Di Venanzo ) A pathetic gambler played by Ugo Tognazzi can pay his enormous debts only by allowing the disgusting winner played by Bernard Blier to sleep with his attractive wife but Blier falls sound asleep before he can enjoy her in bed. The next morning though he is persuaded to believe that he actually slept with her and goes around town boasting about his newfound youthful vitality.Which will lead Tognazzi to being thought of as a disgraceful cuckold.And there are even a few more complications after that.