The Priest's Wife

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni shine in the roles of the star- crossed lovers. Valeria is rebounding from a four-year affair with a man she now finds out is married. She expresses her displeasure at the man in one of the funniest scenes in the film - early on - a madcap car chase through Rome.

Aside: cars in Rome during the 1970s were a lot smaller than ours are today - even including Mini-Coopers. And this is the 8th of 11 films she and Mastrioanni made together.

Distraught to the point of suicide, she calls a crisis help line, on impulse, and is answered by a man who does his best to talk her out of it, but doesn't quite succeed. She's taken to a hospital, calls the help line again, insisting that the man she talked to come to her. When he arrives, she notices that he's a priest.

That disappoints her: her first man was married to his wife, now this one is married to the church.

Needless to say, their relationship grows, despite every effort by Don Mario to fend her off.

The rest of the story, combining humor and pathos, revolves around Valeria's attempts to get Don Mario to quit the priesthood and marry her, and his attempts to get the church authorities to let him go.

Loren is, as usual, stunningly beautiful, and considering that her character in the movie is as poor as anyone else in Italy, wears some gorgeous outfits.

One of the great throw-away lines in the movie comes when Don Maro is visiting the hospital, and one of the doctors asks him to use his influence with the government.

"The Church has no influence with the government", Don Mario says.

"If they don't, who does"?

The screening we saw was dubbed in English. I would have liked to hear the real voices - but we take what we can.

Overall, I recommend this one.