LA MORTADELLA
Italy, 1971, 97 minutes, Colour.
Sophia Loren, William Devane, Gigi Proietti, David Doyle, Danny De Vito, Susan Sarandon.
Directed by Mario Monicelli.
La Mortadella is a Sophia Loren vehicle. She had made an impact in the 1950s in Italian films and then in the United States with such films as The Proud and the Profane, Desire Under the Elms, Houseboat. She won her Oscar in 1961 for Two Women and made a number of films in the 1960s with Vittorio de Sica. She continued her international acting career for many decades.
She portrays a young woman who works with her fiancé in a factory in Italy. She cannot marry him because he is already married and cannot be divorced. She persuades him to go to the United States and follows four years later. Because she has brought a mortadella sausage in, she is held for the better part of the film in the American Customs office and immigration control. She also discovers a bit about what has happened to her fiancé in his stay in the United States.
The film is comic, Sophia Loren a very strong character, making demands and showing some of the ridiculous attitudes of American officialdom.
The film is an early one for both Danny De Vito and Susan Sarandon. William Devane appeared as a leading man in many films of the 70s and was a key principal actor in Knots Landing during the 80s and 90s, appearing in two hundred and fifty-nine episodes.
Mario Monicelli is a veteran Italian director of many genres. He directed his first film in 1935 and was still writing and directing at the age of ninety-one in 2006.
1. Was this a successful film or a failure? For Italian audiences? For worldwide audiences?
2. For whom was the film made? For people familiar with Italian backgrounds? For wider audiences? How successful a comedy was this for both audiences? Why?
3. How well did the film use the theme of migration and Its realities? The picturing of the old world? The picturing of the new world? America as a dream? The reality of customs and actually getting into a country? Red tape and officialdom? What impact would this film therefore have for migrants and prospective migrants? Why?
4. How attractive was the heroine? The personality and style of Sophia Loren? Sympathy for her? Her work in the old country? Her flight to America? The arranged fiance? The cheese itself as a symbol of the principles to be argued about, the nature of the case with the Mortadella?
5. The Mortadella case - how significant was it in the film, for the heroine? Was it making too much of a mountain out of a molehill? Why?
6. How pleasant was the hero? The solution of eating the Mortadella? His ambitions? His relationship with his mother? The heroine's disillusion with him?
7. How did the reporter contrast with the hero? His New York background, callous and callow, his attitude towards migrants, his wanting some sensation for his paper? His attitude towards money? How likeable was he, how unlikeable? What he printed about the heroine? His taking her home, his attitude towards his wife and children? Her sleeping with him?
8. The fact that he was bashed by the fiance? Then the Italian poses of rejecting and accepting? What social comment was being made by this behaviour?
9. What effect did this have on the heroine? Her attitudes towards both men? Towards her future?
10. How important dramatically was the situation of the heroine at the end, the unsatisfactory entry into the country, the range of her choices, her bad experiences yet her wanting to stay?
11. What was the ultimate impact of this film as a human comedy, about principles and migration, was it worth filming for these reasons?
