Il bell’Antonio

A decade-long battle with the censors was involved in bringing this daring, beautifully realized film of Vitaliano Brancati’s controversial novel to the screen. Marcello Mastroianni is “beautiful Antonio,” a victim of Italian machismo who fulfills all too well the dual expectations of his native Sicily—pursuing his sexual prowess with women of the people and protecting the virginity of the highborn, which includes his own adored wife (Claudia Cardinale). In a town like Catania, everything is everyone’s business, and family, sex, the Church, and Sicilian insider/outsider politics are as inextricably entwined as strands of spaghetti on a plate.