The Magnificent Cuckold

The hypocritical lothario is a common enough character in commedia all’italiana. Egotistical husbands who justified their own sidepiece but resented a wife enjoying the same extra-marital activities have been played for laughs in Italian cinema since the ‘50s. But by 1964, the tide was turning in the battle of the sexes. Director Antonio Pietrangeli’s The Magnificent Cuckold still had a sense of humor, but there was a new threat of creeping modernity quietly insinuating that the alpha male was an endangered species.

Like his family hat business that is slowly going out of style, Andrea (Ugo Tognazzi) lives a bourgeois existence built around three-martini lunches, dinner parties and casual affairs. Even the wives of his business associates participate in the gossip-fueled social circle of complicated hotel room rendezvous. But not Maria Grazia (Claudia Cardinale); Andrea’s better half is a virginal ideal of fidelity. Her spotless reputation is his greatest status symbol…right up until it becomes the thing that drives him crazy.

Pietrangeli’s film - despite the witty dialogue, sexy dream sequences and catchy pop tunes – winds up being more tragedy than comedy. After engaging in his own afterhours tryst, Andrea’s guilty conscience creates a paranoid delusion that his wife simply must be engaging in an affair of her own. And his increasingly desperate and intrusive efforts to uncover a truth that doesn’t exist wind up creating the very situation he was hoping to avoid.

Being part of the Italian sex-farce cycle of the day, The Magnificent Cuckold certainly isn’t designed to be a downer. The casting of Claudia Cardinale alone ensures that eyes will be glued to the screen, particularly during her “veil dance” in which a gaggle of men draw numbers to see who gets to pull off which piece of her revealing costume. The film, like Cardinale herself, disguises itself as a frothy sex comedy but has something much sharper tucked underneath. Quite simply, it insists that the idea of a woman enjoying the same sexual autonomy as a man is no longer a joke.

Making its world English-subtitled Blu-ray premiere, this is another beautiful 4K restoration from Radiance Films. Extras include a lengthy interview with Richard Dyer - discussing how the film’s subject matter and style fits in a rapidly evolving Italy - a visual essay covering Italian culture and the male ego - plus a quick clip from the film’s 1971 re-release that added a splash of color to all the dream sequences. A smart set of liner notes and reversible artwork are tacked on as well.