The Sunday Woman

Mr. Garrone , an old architect and skirt chaser has been killed in his apartment: somebody hit him with a stone phallus. The commissioner Salvatore Santamaria, who comes from Rome , is in charge of this investigation. His superior tells him to be very carefull with the high society of Turin. The commissioner will meet a wealthy businessman ,Massimo Campi and Anna Carla Dosio, a rich and bored woman. The description of this high society which is complaining about the criminality, trying to speak in English , speaking about their holidays and sending their children to Switzerland for their education is quite fine and maybe more interesting that the investigation itself. I enjoyed the performances of Marcello Mastrioanni, Jean-Louis Trintignant , Aldo Reggiani, Jacqueline Bisset and Claudio Gora.

"The police have the victim, the weapon and the suspect. What they don't have is the Sunday Woman." You know that a movie is high class when Marcello Mastroianni plays the investigator and it's based on a book that's listed as one of the first examples of modern Italian crime novels. Commissioner Santamaria (Mastroianni) is on the case of Garrone, an architect who was playing an intellectual game of murder within a series of letters to his friend Massimo Campi (Jean-Louis Trintignant). While investigating, Satanamaria falls for one of the suspects, Anna Carla Dosio. Can we blame him when she's played by Jacqueline Bisset? It seems that Garrone has been killed for his blackmailing, but now that Campi's boyfriend Lello has also been killed - amongst others - the plot is thickening. Luigi Comencini is usually the director of more high brow things than we cover here. But hey - there's a Morricone soundtrack to tether us to the tenuous connections to the giallo genre that we hold so dear. I guess I shouldn't say too high brow, as after all the main victim is murdered with a stone *, so there's that.

Lightweight, afternoon tea-like Giallo with subtle humour and a nice performance by Marcello Mastrioanni. A kind of Marks and Spencer giallo. In Turin, dirty old man/architect Garrone goes about his daily business of looking up woman's skirts, making optimistic passes at young waitresses, and ruining high class are exhibitions. Meanwhile, bored housewife Anna is tuning out her older husband ramblings and thinking about a pointless argument she's having with her possible lover Massimo (Jean-Luis Trintigant). They are arguing about how to pronounce the word Boston, by the way, and this architect Garrone has stuck his nib in about it. Clearly venting, Anna writes a letter where she thinks Massimo and herself should kill Garrone. Garrone ends up being beaten to death by a giant stone phallus and Anna regrets writing that letter as her two newly-fired house staff take the letter to the police. The man in charge of the case is Marcello Mastrioanni and he's a bit uncomfortable with this whole upper class thing. The bored Anna and the even more bored Massimo start treating the whole thing like a game and start doing their own investigations. Complicating things further is the revelation that Massimo isn't Anna's lover, as he's in a turbulent gay relationship Lello. While it's refreshing to see an actual gay relationship in an Italian movie from this era, rather than a man in drag battering policeman with a handbag and screaming that he's all woman, these two bicker like fiends and you wonder what Lello is thinking when he also starts his own investigation into the murder to save his relationship with Massimo. The more Marcello digs, the more dirt he finds as it seems that no one has an alibi and everyone seems to be up to something. He now also has to contend with two eccentric sisters who have trouble with hooker using their garden for business, a mysterious car that's following people around and a stonemason business that specializes in stone phalluses There's not a great deal of murder here but plenty of mystery, and Marcello Mastrioanni's laid back, bemused cop wanders through a world he doesn't understand, with a few sidekicks, many, many meals, and plenty of discussion about Sicilians, Sardinians, and Piedmontians. It's quite a long film for a giallo and even though it's trash free, my mind didn't wander at all while watching it. Nice Ennio Morricone soundtrack too - but do i have to say that?

The story is taken from the Fruttero & Lucentini's book of the same title. Mysterious murders take place in Turin, Italy; victims are always people from the upper class. The movie is not a masterpiece. The solution of the cases is not well explained, the director goes too fast in showing us who the guilty is. The movie lacks some dramatical moments. Nevertheless, "La donna della domenica" is still an enjoyable movie. First, the cast is excellent: Marcello Mastroianni is very charming in the role of the elegant policeman Santamaria; Jacqueline Bisset too is delightful in the part of the snobbish lady; also Jean-Louis Trintignant works very well. Other Italian actors (with a long experience in the theatre and at the movies) complete the cast, for example Claudio Gora and Lina Volonghi. Luigi Comencini, one the inventors of the Italian comedy, directs this 1975 thriller with a lot of humor. And, as usual, the music of Ennio Morricone is fantastic (actually that's one of the highlights of the film).

Without Morricone's music - which resembles that of another film he also composed - the film would have no value, the story has no interest. Mastroianni strives to play a good role and he even succeeds, he's the best of the entire cast. The second best is Claudio Gora, in a short-lived role. The other actors, including Bisset and Trintignant, are all annoying. One star for Marcello and one for Gora.

Even though this film is very Italian and some of the comedy rather difficult it is still really enjoyable. The dialogue is rather fast and with amusing play on the words it is still great. The city of Turin the gardens, the houses and the streets are wonderful and especially the market on a Sunday towards the end. Even when it gets a bit silly there are still the three actors who are fantastic. Marcello Mastroianni is good enough although it is probably not his sort of role he loves but Jean-Louis Trintignant is great in this even though he has to play a gay couple. Trintignant's some early films really good, ...And God Created Woman (1956), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1959) and then some of his greats, The Conformist (1970) and Three Colours: Red (1994). But really splendid in this film is Jacqueline Bisset who is so lovely and really good throughout. Her first film was as an extra in, The Knack...And How to Get it (1965) and not much bigger in Cul-De-Sac (1966) although she got some great films but probably nothing better than Bullitt (1968).