gridoon2024 Review of Il padre di famiglia

Il padre di famiglia (1967)

Wonderful Leslie Caron in dull, shapeless film

[3/10 · 17 November 2012]

Leslie Caron has an earthy, mature, Sophia Loren-esque sensuality about her in this film, and her "breakdown" scene near the end is a riveting piece of acting. Other than her, "The Head Of The Family" is an episodic, mostly dull and pointless "social comedy", chronicling the lives of an idealistic couple of architects in post-WWII and post-monarchy Italy, from their initial meeting as students to their marriage, their four kids, the husband's brief affair with an attractive journalist ("Thunderball"'s Claudine Auger, who despite her third billing has only a small part here), etc. The script is choppy and establishes no sense of time; in one scene Manfredi and Caron share their first kiss, two scenes later they already have three kids! I do have to quote the one funny (dubbed) line of the film, though: kid - "I put the thermometer 5 minutes in my mouth and 5 minutes in my rectum", dad - "I hope you put it in your mouth first", kid - "No". * out of 4.