Luigi Comencini
La Donna Della Domenica

The recent passing of Luigi Comencini makes it timely to provide a brief review of one of his commercially successful films, like "La donna della domenica" ('74), indicative of a certain evolution of the Italian thriller genre in the flourishing '70s.

Let me quickly summarize the plot of the film for DeBaser users who haven't seen it yet: the upper-class Turin of the '70s is shaken by the murder of architect Garrone, an ambiguous and vicious professional slaughtered with a stone phallus (!). The investigations are conducted in parallel by Commissioner Santamaria (a southerner transplanted to Piedmont) and by some members of the good Turin bourgeoisie. The solution to the mystery will be surprising, in its (Savoyard) concreteness.

It must be said immediately that the film, though excellent, is inferior to the novel from which it is adapted, the narrative debut of the "Einaudian" intellectual duo Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. In the book, the thriller plot was a pretext for carefully crafted literary exercises based on the interrelation of "languages" (that of the upper bourgeoisie, popular Turin, and the city of southern immigrants), and the very solution of the thriller plot was hidden behind the misinterpretation of an ancient Piedmontese proverb. The variety of languages corresponded to a variety of characters skillfully drawn by the pens of the two writers, painting a sort of "human comedy" that had its antecedents in the great 19th-century novels. The novel, still among the "long sellers" of Italian publishing, is in my opinion among the most interesting readings of the second half of the 20th century, even without bearing the marks of a literary masterpiece: suffice it to read the first chapter, which describes Garrone's day on the day he was killed, between vices and walks in the center of Turin.

In the film, the variety of styles and languages is lost in favor of a sometimes sketchy representation of the various characters, with a well-cast Mastroianni playing the indolent Roman Santamaria, the uncertain (but charming) Jaqueline Bisset and Jean Louis Trintignant portraying the representatives of the Piedmontese bourgeoisie. The supporting characters, from Lina Volonghi to Gigi Ballista, including Pino Caruso, Giuseppe Anatrelli, Aldo Reggiani, are excellently portrayed.

The feature film compresses, and highlights, the thriller plot from Fruttero and Lucentini's book, at the expense of the complexity of the literary exercise, positioning itself as a "noble" example of the Italian thriller, exploiting the wake of Bava, Fulci, and Argento: this is achieved through the use of top-tier actors with significant commercial appeal, experienced screenwriters, formal elegance at the expense of the gratuitous violence of the films then in vogue.

The film does not lack suspense scenes, enjoyable by enthusiasts and even those not well-versed in thriller cinema: in this sense, the film almost has an educational character, bringing closer to a cinematic genre considered, wrongly, as second-rate, even the less accustomed audience. Personally, it was precisely through "La donna della domenica"—in addition to Mondatori's mystery books for young readers (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, Pimlico Boys)—that I was introduced to mystery literature and cinema.

Lastly, viewing this film always leaves me with a question: how much did the (probable, if not certain) reading of "La donna della domenica" influence the drafting of the script for "Profondo Rosso"? No one has ever asked Dario Argento or Bernardino Zapponi.