Seduced and Abandoned (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Seduced and Abandoned (1964) – P. Germi

It’s a righteously angry…comedy… about Italian law and hypocrisy.  A bleak satire that focuses on men’s double standard for women, wanting to seduce them (and hoping they will comply) but then rejecting them for marriage because they are no longer virginal.  Remember this is the early ‘60s – a lifetime away from the present and it’s Sicily where old fashioned views may have survived longer.  Worse, although men could be jailed for seducing an underage girl, if they subsequently married her (a.k.a. shotgun wedding), the charges would be dropped.  How the women in question felt about all this, particularly those in the latter situation (raped and then encouraged to marry the rapist), doesn’t seem to have been usually factored into the equation.  This is the focus of Pietro Germi’s film, which finds young Stefania Sandrelli giving in to Aldo Puglisi’s advances and then finding herself rejected by him, but pregnant.  Her perpetually apoplectic father, played by Saro Urzì, thinks of the family’s honour first and foremost, doing his utmost to shift the blame for the predicament onto Puglisi and to cover up any sexual relationship at all (the problem lies in the fact that Puglisi is already engaged to Urzi’s other older daughter).  In typical comedic fashion, worse turns to worst, as Agnese (Sandrelli) rejects this plan (and another one which sees her brother shooting Puglisi in a staged crime of passion) and instead brings in the police and courts.  Everyone is frantic about their family honour and things begin to get over complicated.  There are some humorous moments but the feel of the film is generally unsavoury (and not as blackly funny as Divorce, Italian Style, 1961, Germi’s earlier hit) – there are few sympathetic characters and even the ridiculous ones (a hapless and poverty-stricken Baron brought in to marry the older sister in lieu of Puglisi) sometimes do questionable things. But the film looks great in crisp black and white, the acting is strong, and the message is on target. Nevertheless, I hope this film is hopelessly dated.