During 1962, it appears that the divorce was illegal in Italy. Within a short time, Baron started Sicily as a married person but falls in love with his cousin and vows to marry her. It seems that he is trying to enter into an affair and must prepare an emotional crime to get rid of his wife for the sake of love.
Skillfully written, with a penetrating, almost brutal glimpse of Sicily and its antiquated way of life, it has been directed by Pietro Germi with lagless pace and consistent incisiveness, evoking constant chuckles rather than isolated guffaws.
It is the most subversive jab at Mastrioanni's chauvinist characters possible, circumstantial metaphysics in which the lecher is targeted by the very film he inhabits.
