STUDIO: Criterion
RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2008
STARRING: Alberto Sordi and Norma Bengell
WRITTEN BY: Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, Age, & Scarpelli
DIRECTED BY: Alberto Lattuada
FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Ritratti d'autore, a 1996 interview with director Alberto Lattuada by filmmaker Daniele Luchetti
New video interviews with the director's life, actress Carla Del Poggio (Variety Lights), and son, Alessandro Lattuada
Trailers for the original Italian release and the 2007 U.S. rerelease
Gallery of promotional caricatures by artist Keiro Kimura
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: New essays by Phillip Lopate and Roberto Chiesi and a 1982 interview with Alberto Lattuada

There are three different kinds of Criterion releases. There are the 'household names' - the films that are classics in nearly everyone's eye like Rebecca, The Third Man, or Diabolique. Then there are the 'modern classics' - the films that have come out in the last quarter century but deserve to be on the same shelf as the masters like Rushmore, The Ice Storm, or The Last Emperor. The in-between category is often the most fascinating. On a regular schedule, Criterion unearthes movies from the vaults that haven't got the press they deserve and treats them with the same respect as the household names. That's how you get great titles like Ace in the Hole, Ivan's Childhood, and, now, Mafioso. Movies that don't make it to "talking head" TV specials like the AFI series of "Top 100s" are going to be harder and harder to find a place in the market and we need Criterion to bring them to the same light as the movies that everyone already knows and loves. Most people, even hardcore classic movie nuts, probably haven't heard of Mafioso, a 1962 dark comedy from Italian director Alberto Lattuada, but Criterion does the home market another favor by bringing this incredible film to a generation that probably didn't even know it existed.

Mafioso comes from the classic genre of "You can't go home again" but it has so much more going on than your average returning son comedy that it's a league above your typical fish returning to water flicks. The film proves that movies about culture clashes are timeless. In the dark comedy, the great Alberto Sordi plays Nino, a successful, friendly, affable man living in Milan with his modern, blonde wife and their two blonde children. Nino works in industrial Milan as an auto-factory foreman and he returns with his family to a completely different world - his home town in Sicily. The industry and the city streets are replaced by fishermen, food, and family. Of course, "family" has a different meaning in some Sicilian towns and it turns out that Nino's family has some pretty serious mob ties. Nino is drawn into a plot that quickly goes from comedy to existential nightmare.

Mafioso is as multi-layered a cultural comedy as you'll ever see. There are the basic plot issues of old world vs. new world - mafia vs. industry - but there are so many other brilliant themes like the folly of trying to bridge two completely different worlds (as Nino and his family cross to Sicily via ferry, he dreams of the day the bridge is built and it's only one of several places in the movie where Lattuada draws a line between the two halves of Nino). Lattuada also has a ball with the human condition of romanticizing home. When Nino first gets home, he's so overwhelmed with joy that he sings. not really even noticing the dark edges clearly visible in town or the fact that his family kind of hates his wife. Mafioso is also delightfully vicious. Nino's wife buys a gift for her father-in-law, a set of gloves, not knowing that he lost, a revelation which Nino blows off raising his hand and saying it was just a "game" where "a guy pointed a gun and he said 'stop'" Mafioso transcends cultural comedy in the final act when Sordi and Lattuada completely sell the torture of the world that Nino has found himself stuck in. He has no way out and the final scenes are as memorable as any you'll see on DVD this month.

The final scenes are even more memorable courtesy of Criterion's once-again perfect video transfer. Mafioso looks gorgeous with more shades of gray in its black and white transfer than you can even imagine. It's a beautifully shot film and the high-definition digital transfer makes it look better than it probably ever did. The liner notes claim that "thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed from the original 35 mm negative." The work was worth it. Mafioso is only available in mono, but it's a surprisingly vivid track. The only place where Mafioso might disappoint some collectors is in the special features department, but it's not easy to come up with extensive extras for a 46-year-old movie as relatively unknown as Mafioso. What is included - an interview with the director's son and wife, a special about Lattuada's filmography, trailers, and galleries - are interesting, if incredibly brief.

The Italian cinema movement of the '50s and '60s was an incredibly varied and rich time in film history - so much so that even a great film like Mafioso can get buried by the more high-profile projects of names more film-school common like Rossellini, Fellini, and Antonioni. Mafioso will never be an instantly recognizable movie and it won't turn into a common hit like some of other films of its era, but hardcore film buffs simply must see it and we're lucky to have Criterion to give us the opportunity to do so.