New Orleans Film Society

Synopsis

The late director Alberto Lattuada’s rediscovered black comedy masterwork stars Alberto Sordi (the immensely popular star of Fellini’s The White Sheik and I Vitelloni) as a factory foreman in Northern Italy who returns to his hometown in Sicily, only to find himself unwittingly tapped as a hit man by the local Don. Released in 1962, Lattuada’s Mafioso had been shamefully forgotten until Rialto Pictures (the company responsible for the rediscovery of Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterwork Army of Shadows) re-issued the film to critical hosannas at the New York Film Festival. Mafioso remains one of the darkest, most authentic movies about the mob—and the funniest; it pre-dates The Godfather and most other Mafia movies by a decade. Written by Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, and the famed team of Age Scarpelli (Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli), whose credits include The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Big Deal on Madonna Street, and Divorce Italian Style. Newly Restored 35 mm print.