The Bishop's Bedroom

The Second World War has just ended and the somewhat opportunist young seafarer "Marco" (Patrick Dewaere) happens upon the rather entertaining Lothario "Orimbelli" (Ugo Tognazzi) who invites him to his luxury villa for supper with wife "Cleofe" (Gabriella Giacobbe) and her gorgeous but withdrawn and recently widowed sister "Matilde" (Ornella Muti). He takes a bit of a shine to this rather reticent lady and what now ensues has something of a slightly more sophisticated and mysterious "Carry On" film to it. There are games being played, strings being pulled and there's a palpable degree of light-hearted sexual tension as all the while there is the six-million lire question about the contents of a box in what used to be the bedroom of the bishop whose home this formerly was. There is something engagingly straight-faced about the performances from Dewaere and Tognazzi whilst Giacobbe really does look like she is enjoying herself in a role that she is quite clearly dictating for herself as she plays along. Muti is a little too underused, I thought, but when she does appear there is some fun to be had as this unlikely quartet challenge social and ageist attitudes to craft something that's about as politically incorrect as you might expect from corset-free Italian cinema of the later 1970s. It can make you cringe at times and indeed time itself hasn't been so kind to the thing, but there's no point in watching it with 2020s goggles if you can't transport yourself and your perspective back to a time when the rules of cinematic engagement were less judgemental and/or proscriptive. I didn't love it, and it did end up a little repetitious at times, but it's still quite enjoyable at times too.