One of Claudia Cardinale's finest and least known films in the U.S. is Il bell'Antonio (Handsome Antonio). Released in 1960, the Italian movie paired Ms. Cardinale with Marcello Mastroianni and centers on a man so overwhelmingly handsome that women of all ages can't resist him. Yet he seems to care little for those he wins over in Catania, Sicily, his home town, and in Rome, where he works, despite their undying love for him.
Antonio Magnano (Mastroianni) is remote, blase and incapable of desire and love. He seems to go through the motions just to preserve his reputation and confirm what he sees in the mirror—his sexual magnetism. One day, while home in Catania, he is handed a photograph of Barbara Puglisi (Ms. Cardinale), whom his parents have urged him to marry.
He is instantly struck by her beauty and realizes she is his visual match. His parents are overjoyed for his happiness and for selfish business reasons. In short order, the two are wed, but you'll have to watch the film to learn their fate.
Directed by Mauro Bolognini and written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the film is widely considered to be Bolognini's masterpiece. The direction is first rate, capturing the social claustrophobia and scheming of provincial Catania without condemnation or judgment. Mastroianni perfectly underplays his affect on women, treating his handsome looks as a tiresome defect or burdensome liability.
Ms. Cardinale is staggeringly beautiful but plays her character as modest and almost unaware of her visual appeal. The funeral procession scene with Mastroianni and Ms. Cardinale walking behind the hearse carrying her deceased grandfather to the local church still dazzles. Mastroianni and Ms. Cardinale can't take their eyes off each other, and the town notices.
The film bravely takes on a wide range of sensitive topics—the church, government, masculinity, arranged marriages, virility, conformity and the absurd fate of those who assume that happiness relies on looks alone.
The score is by Piero Piccioni (above), and the film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Here is Il bell'Antonio (1960), one of my favorite films by Ms. Cardinale (along with Girl With a Suitcase, which I screened here last year)...
