A wry, hallucinatory, and sardonic Italian-style dark comedy that mixes sex, paranoia and mid-century swagger, made in a place where Rome was in the mod 60s, scored by a jazzy Armando Trovajoli, all mixed up to show one man going insane when he thinks his wife is stepping out on him.
Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli, The Magnificent Cuckold stars Ugo Tognazzi as Andrea Artusi, a wealthy, middle-aged hat tycoon madly—and blindly—in love with his youthful, gorgeous wife, Maria Grazia (Claudia Cardinale). Life is blissful until Andrea falls victim to adultery himself, succumbing to the advances of a peer’s wife. Suddenly, a toxic cocktail of guilt and insecurity infects his brain. If he can cheat, why wouldn’t his breathtaking wife? What begins as mild doubt spirals into a maniacal obsession. Andrea starts paying friends to spy on her, awkwardly tailing her through Rome and imagining elaborate scenarios of infidelity. Featuring brilliant visual flourishes—like foggy, wide-angle lenses that warp the edges of the frame during fantasy sequences—the film is a biting, fearless comedy of manners that brilliantly lampoons bourgeois morality.
The Radiance Blu-ray of this movie has a 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative by the Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Compass Film and Studio Cine; a new interview with Italian film expert Richard Dyer; a new visual essay by Italian cinema professor Rémi Fournier Lanzoni; alternative color sequences; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow; and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by film critic Phuong Le and archival writing. You can get it from MVD.
