Alberto Sordi and Shelley Winters both won awards for their performances in this strange comedy-drama about a petty bourgeois bureaucrat grooming his only son to follow in his footsteps. But the boy is as hapless and apathetic as the father is cynical and obsequious, so a lot of palms will have to be greased, much groveling done. In a memorable scene, the father, Giovanni, is initiated into the Masons at a grotesque ceremony where he recognizes many of his fellow office workers. From broad satiric comedy the mood suddenly shifts when the boy is killed by a terrorist's stray bullet. Mama (Winters) is paralyzed with grief, and Giovanni too is transformed. The second half of the film-and of Giovanni's life-will be devoted to gruesome revenge. Certainly no film has offered Sordi a broader range to work with, from searing satire, to grief that implodes before it finds its target. Director Mario Monicelli in both parts of the film is exploring the frenzy and frustration lurking just beneath the surface of those who always have done as they were told.