MUBI

Alberto Sordi stars for director Alberto Lattuada in this very dark comedy about a city man who brings his wife and kids back home to Sicily for the first time, to find the local mafia Don all too willing to press him into service after he does his family a favor. This is a film of two halves, the first being a ribald examination of the differences between city living and ancient Sicilian customs, while the second, much darker in tone and style, begins when the Don tasks our hero with an assassination job in New York City, giving the story obvious moral complications. Criterion’s DVD edition of this rediscovered gem features numerous interviews with Lattuada’s surviving relatives, as well as a TV documentary featuring an interview with the master himself.