Dismissed on his Wedding Night starts off with a paradox, the “boss” orders his chauffeur to let him drive the car; when it leads to a disastrous accident, his employee will be the one to take the fall. And with it prison. And a fake wife (the boss’s lover), a fake position as CEO, fake bankruptcies and fake earnings, and so on. The story imagined by Tonino Guerra, Luigi Malerba and Franco Indovina is a dystopian metaphor in which the working class, excited by luxury and sex, allows itself to be used without fighting back. Released at the height of the 1968 protests, it was a bold experiment in its own way, starring Tognazzi humbly at his own service as the director, a dazzlingly splendid Maria Grazia Buccella and Gastone Moschin in his authoritarian version. The restoration by Cineteca Nazionale found traces of various censored parts on the film: they thus uncovered short nude scenes, the sign (scratched directly on the negative) of Italcantieri, and Tognazzi’s soliloquy at the launching, with the protagonist possessed by the neo-capitalist Word and crushed at the same time by Maoist remorse. Also recovered, halfway through the film, the musical intermezzo on a black screen with the theme song, repeated afterwards during the closing credits. It is, of course, a magnificent piece. By Amurri-Pisano: Attimo per attimo. The orchestra is conducted by Berto Pisano, the singer is Mina. (Alberto Anile)
DIRECTOR: Ugo Tognazzi
NATION: Italy
YEAR: 1968
RUNTIME: 105′
CAST: Ugo Tognazzi, Maria Grazia Buccella, Gastone Moschin, Franco Fabrizi
Original version with subtitles