The male of the species, represented by Sordi, Tognazzi, Gassman and Co., comes off none too well in nine very funny episodes ranging from utterly black satires of human cruelty to slapstick relief. As mirrors for l'uomo these three seem to have made vanity, manipulation and duplicity a plastic art. The sketches--directed by the maestros of Italian comedy, Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi and Ettore Scola--variously find Gassman as a smooth-talking cardinal who slyly diffuses the politics of a left-wing parish; Tognazzi as the husband of a popular singer who contrives to have his wife literally "break a leg" as a sympathy ploy; and Sordi as a supposedly devoted son who delivers up his aged mother to an uncertain destiny on a Sunday afternoon. In the image of the garrulous Sordi delivering a graveside eulogy for a famous comedian that incorporates all the fellow's best jokes, Viva Italia delightfully turns the mirror back on itself.