THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 752, 11 December 1953, Page 17

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

(International) HE idea of the omnibus film which the English brought off successfully in Quartet and other Somerset Maugham adaptations, and the Americans with less certainty in O. Henry’s Full House and We’re Not Married, has been elaborately capped in this French-Italian production which provides an ironic and often amusing insight into the moral life, as seen from the European point of view. Not only are we presented with seven self-contained films illustrating the seven (or rather eight in this case) deadly sins, but these films are directed by "the world’s famous seven" directors, namely, Roberto Rossellini, Eduardo de Filippo, Yves Allegret, Jean Dreville, Carlo-Rim, Claude AutantLara, and Georges Lacombe. The entire production runs for something over 13,000 feet, and it isn’t first class all through, But by and large it is spirited stuff, sophisticated and witty, with particularly good episodes on Envy and Pride-and a not unfamiliar rib-tickler on the subject of Gluttony. The theme is introduced, and the episodes linked together by shots of a carnival side-show where puppets representing the seven sins are knocked down with balls by the spectators. In the first episode, a double-header by de Filippo, Avarice is represented by a miserly landlord who has trouble with an impecunious tenant, a teacher of the clarinet. Because the clarinettist can’t pay his rent the landlord won't give his wife the money he has promised her for a trip to the hairdresser, and she in her Anger cuts off her hair and throws his money-chest out of the window. The illustration of Sloth (by Jean Dreville) is a little fable about the heavenly masters who control our fates, which treads delicately through a whimsical cloud of fantasy without quite shattering its illusion, Lust is presented in a bucolic tale by Yves Allegret about a village priest, and a mother and daughter in love with the same man. Wisely enough, the producers of The Seven Deadly Sins have reserved their best shots until the last. Envy, directed by Roberto Rossellini, is a psychologically shrewd adaptation of a Colette story about an Italian painter (Orfeo Tamburi), his cat, and his young bride (Andrée Debar). Gluttony, showing the fate of a lonely traveller (Henri Vidal) who stays the night at a peasant’s cottage, is broadly played for farce by Carlo-Rim. Pride, directed by Claude Autant-Lara, is a society tale about an aristocratic old lady who has come down in the world, and her proud daughter who decides to go to a ball which she wasn’t invited to. It is extremely well acted by Francoise Rosay and Michele Morgan. The eighth sin which tops off the film is a director’s flourish which shows the audience where it fits in the general scheme of man’s moral transgressions, and gives a neat Gallic touch to the conclusion. The various actors and actresses in this lengthy morality play, besides those mentioned, include Paolo Stoppa as the avaricious landlord and Isa Miranda as his wife, Noel-Noel -as the celestial visitor in episode two, and Viviane Romance, Frank Villard, and Francette Vernillat (as the daughter). in the third story.