A trio of international stars top-line a murder mystery involving class and sexual orientation in 1975's The Sunday Woman. Set in Turin and adapted by Age Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street) from a novel by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, director Luigi Comencini (Bread, Love and Dreams) turned to Italy's Marcello Mastrioanni as a middle-class police commissioner and French and British duo Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jacqueline Bisset as two idle rich suspects in the brutal murder of a boorish architect.
Comencini starts by following Garrone (Il Sorpasso's Claudio Gora) around town as he makes crude, sexist remarks wherever he goes, including the same parties bitchy pals Massimo (Trintignant) and Anna Carla (Bisset) frequent. At one such soirée, Anna Carla quips that "such disgusting individuals should be put down." In a letter to Massimo, she even threatens to murder him but thinks better of sending it. When she callously fires two cleaning staffers, they go to Mastroianni's Santamaria with the letter, thus casting suspicion on Anna Carla and Massimo.
Other suspects include Anna Carla's industrialist husband, the volatile artist who made the phallic sculpture with which Garrone was bludgeoned, and Massimo's working-class lover, Lello (Aldo Reggiani). Though the film treats Massimo's homosexuality in a refreshingly matter-of-fact manner--and though Trintignant's performance is free of affectation--Lello doesn't make out quite so well. Convinced he can clear Massimo's name faster than the easygoing Santamaria, who is a little too easily distracted by stunning socialite Anna Carla, he puts himself directly in harm's way--and pays the price.
The kinky sculpture combined with an entire warehouse filled with phallic art pieces of every size, plus a witness's description of a tall blonde woman in a clear trench coat leaving Garrone's flat the night of his murder has led some critics to describe The Sunday Woman as a Giallo. It really isn't, though cinematographer Luciano Tovoli, who appears in one of the extra features, also shot Dario Argento's Suspiria (other extras include interviews with Trintignant and film studies professor Richard Dyer).
The trench-coat-clad woman leads Santamaria to question the sex workers at a nearby brothel, in addition to a man he suspects of cross-dressing. Though probably coincidental, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if Brian De Palma took inspiration from The Sunday Woman for 1980s Dressed to Kill, which features a tall, blonde, trench coat-clad, cross-dressing killer.
Overall, the three movie stars all make their mark, especially Mastroianni who brings a deft comic touch to his character (he would revisit the role in the 1985 sequel). As was Italian convention at the time, the actors are dubbed--even though Trintignant, a spaghetti western veteran, spoke Italian--and Bisset's voice sounds uncharacteristically bright. Two years later, she would solidify her stardom with a sexy turn in The Deep, another hit movie adapted from a bestselling novel. Composer Ennio Morricone's score also brings just the right amount of humor and menace to the lightly satiric proceedings.
Where does this title belong on library shelves?
A Sunday Woman belongs on International, Italian, and Commedia dell'arte shelves in academic and public libraries.
What kind of film series could use this title?
Luigi Comencini's 28th feature would fit with film series on Italian murder mysteries, comedies of manners, and commedia dell'arte, the genre with which writer, director, and producer Comencini (1916-2007) was most closely associated.
What type of instructors will use this title?
College film studies instructors will find The Sunday Woman useful to illustrate commedia dell'arte, along with Mario Monicelli's 1958 Big Deal on Madonna Street, also written by Incrocci and Scarpelli and starring Mastroianni.