Boccaccio '70

Italy/1962/205 minutes

Directed by:Vittorio De Sica/Luchino Visconti/Federico Fellini/Mario Monicelli

Produced by:Carlo Ponti/Tonino Cervi

Written by:Cesare Zavattini/Luchino Visconti/Mario Monicelli/Federico Fellini

Starring                :Anita Ekberg,Romy Schneider,Sophia Loren,Marisa Solinas

Music by:Nino Rota/Armando Trovaioli

Boccacio was a 14th century Italian poet, storyteller and humanist who among other works wrote "Decameron", a collection of licentious stories which is very much appreciated even nowadays. In 1962 four great Italian film directors (Monicelli, Fellini, Visconti and de Sica) made this movie in four episodes (each one by one of them) inspired on the same theme of Bocaccio's work i.e. erotic love in our times under several of its forms: marital, repressed, adulterous and paid for. It combines Monicelli's humour with Fellini's symbolism, Visconti's psychological realism and de Sica's social and moral satire.

Plot

In Renzo e Luciana, a young couple tries to hide their marriage and the wife's supposed pregnancy from the draconian book-keeper of their employer, who has banned female employees from getting married and having children but does not mind a few cheap thrills at their expense himself.

In Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio, an elderly citizen is fed up with too much immorality in the form of indecent content in print. His anger knows no bounds when a provocative billboard of Anita Ekberg advertising 'Drink more milk' is put up in a park near his residence. Little does he know how that billboard will go on to change his life. Throughout the film, children are heard singing the jingle "Bevete più latte, bevete più latte" - "Drink more milk!" The image begins to haunt him with hallucinations in which she appears as a temptress and Dr. Antonio as St. George to spear the dragon - he is pursued and captured by the buxom Swedish star in a deserted Rome and at one point, his umbrella falls between her breasts.

Il Lavoro is about an aristocratic couple coming to terms with life and marriage after the husband is caught visiting prostitutes by the press.

La Riffa shows a lottery with the winner entitled to one night with the attractive Zoe (Sophia Loren). Zoe, however, has other plans.