Matrimonio all’italiana

The 20-year-old relationship between Napolitan prostitute Filumena Marturano (Sophia Loren) and affluent businessman Domenico Soriano (Marcello Mastroianni) unfolds in flashbacks. Filumena tricks him into the marriage she’s long yearned for by revealing that she has three sons, albeit without telling him which of them is his... Filumena Marturano, Eduardo De Filippo’s most popular play, was written in 1946 in the Napolitan dialect and made into a 1951 film that he himself adapted. Following the international success of Pietro Germi’s Divorzio all’italiana (the similarities between the vain protagonists each played by Marcello Mastroianni are impossible to overlook), Vittorio De Sica followed the trend of adding all’italiana to the end of comedy titles, transposing the plot into the era of the Italian economic miracle and shooting his own version of “Filumena” in the magnificent colors of the 60s. MATRIMONIO ALL’ITALIANA is one of the highpoints of the numerous films that Vittorio De Sica shot with the couple Loren-Mastroianni. (hjf)