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Sunday, Jan 8, 1995
The Temptations of Doctor Antonio
Fellini'sepisode of the three-part Boccaccio '70 mocks the inherent hypocrisy ofthe puritanical in telling of the aggressively prudish Dr. Antonio(Peppino de Filippo). The good doctor wages a one-man war against agiant billboard featuring Anita Ekberg voluptuously promoting milk. Suchfixations tend to create their own realities, and in a dream sequenceAnita indeed comes to life, whereupon Dr. Antonio experiences an attackof the fifty-foot woman and his own latent mammarian angst. The conceithovers between Buñuel and Tashlin but it is in the incidentaldetails that the film is pure Fellini, from an opening sequence thatbeautifully surveys the "problem" at hand-people out forpleasure-to a lovely black-and-white silent sequence in the director'sfirst color film.
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