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A gem of Italian comedy with the duo of Alberto Sordi and Franca Valeri in top form, The Widower mercilessly mocks Italian mores in its laugh-making tale of Nardi, a slow-witted entrepreneur from the lower classes fed up with his society wife Elvira who is much his opposite: smart, rich, competent. Creditors are after his failing business, he owes a payment on his mistress’s fur coat, but Elvira refuses to bail him out, even as she donates money to charity. Tired of asking her for cash and suffering humiliation from her superior intelligence, Nardi plans to do away with his wife, but fate has other designs. (The film’s title signals more than just a hilariously premature funeral.) Sordi, seen here last season in Lattuada’s marvellous Mafioso, made a specialty of such roles – “that rare thing, a matinee idol with a gift for ridiculous comedy” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice) – and is equalled by the formidable Franca Valeri. Risi satirizes class struggle, social sycophancy, and the grasping nature of postwar Italy in this “damn funny black comedy” (Giallo Fever). None other than Chet Baker plays in the score by jazzman Armando Trovaioli.
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