A man becomes convinced his wife is cheating on him, sending his life into a spiral in Antonio Pietrangeli’s Italian dramedy The Magnificent Cuckold. The 1964 film hits Blu-ray via Radiance Films this month.
The Film
Starting with a non-diegetic peppy tune, Ugo Tognazzi’s Andrea Artusi drives through his Italian town, big smile, not a care in the world. He stops at his new home and checks in with his loving, truly gorgeous wife. They chat with a worker, a dashing young man, and off they go to their boudoir to get ready for a party (though it seems like they’d rather stay home). There, they dashingly work through the party, chatting with friends. It seems one is known as an oblivious cuckold, leading to conversation about how one could be. Well, things happen (spoilers!), and Artusi ends up thinking his wife may be making him into the title: The Magnificent Cuckold, directed by Antonio Pietrangeli.
But here’s the irony behind Artusi’s jealousy, driving the film written by Diego Fabbri, Suggero Maccari, Ettore Scola, and Stephano Strucchi from the play Le cocu magnifique by Fernand Crommelynck. He’s a cheat. That’s what sets off his own obsession with what his wife might be doing. At that party, he takes home the wife of the mentioned cuckold: the beautiful, flirty blonde Christiana, and they start a fling. She tells him how easy it is and how she gets away with it. Immediately, he begins to see into everything his wife is up to. It’sa trip how he bends himself backward to try to make something out of nothing (or is it, I won’t tell) but working purely from conjecture. He chases, he speculates, his interviews. All while still keeping up his affair, driving to a manic madness. Well, semi manic; it’s slightly subdued, letting the idea run through. Mixed within are a series of fantasies and imagined sequences. These little touches take an interesting film and give it a sweeter bite, becoming a tinge of giallo or Fellini for a moment. The whole has a magnificent look, using black-and-white photography for a slightly unworldly feel. Because the film is primarily from his point of view, Pietrangeli can experiment with angles and methods.
The Magnificent Cuckold tells the story of Italy’s shifting culture in the 1960s, one of three major Italian films to cover this subject, following Divorce Italian Style and Marriage Italian Style (changing up the title repetition, and others to follow). Italy was going through a modernization in both culture and relationships, personal and sexual freedom, and how the gendered culture takes it. Ultimately, the film has a feminist bent, at least as much as 1964 Italy allowed. As the movie progresses, as Artusi’s ultimately toxic masculinity comes to the fore, his wife Maria also gains further autonomy and sense of herself and her place in the relationship, particularly when she realizes what’s happening. It can be seen, for them at the time, that a woman’s breaking of gender cultures is a cuckolding of masculinity, and this threads throughout
I rather liked Pietrangeli’s film, overall. It’sa compelling plot, and there’s enough driving to speak of the last paragraph’s culture discussion. It is a little long at just over two hours. And it feels like something a little more comedic is about to burst out. It’s funny, sure, but the situation is ripe for some comic increases. It’s almost a farce. But as it is, it’s an interesting go.
The Packaging and Presentation
Radiance puts The Magnificent Cuckold on a single-disc Blu-ray. It features the title in white on a grey background. The clear case has a double-sided sleeve. One side is the original poster w/ plot and features listing. The other has new poster art from Time Tomorrow. I love this art: several blank-faced men surrounding Maria Grazia. A booklet is included. Spine number 189. The transfer from the original negatives looks wonderful. The film is in Black and White and it’s filled with life, with deep detail and use of the specifics of nature. In Italian with English subtitles.
The Features
Radiance has three features on the disc, plus the booklet.
Richard Dyer (new)
Italian cinema expert Dyer gets into the details of the film, the culture around it, the source play. With 43 minutes, he has plenty of time and does so with great detail and interest. (43m)
Under His Gaze: Women, Jealousy, and Power in 1960s Italy (new)
In a visual essay, Remi Fournier Lanzoni discusses Italy’s cultural shift in the 60s, the rise of feminism, and how cinema reflected the change of the guard. (18m).
Color Sequence (1971)
In 1971, the film was released again, this time putting some color overlays on the dream sequences. Here is a 2-minute example.
Booklet
Included is a 19-page stapled booklet. Along with the norms, it has This House is Not a Home: Love in the Time of the Economic Boom (2026) by Phuong Le
Final Thoughts
The Magnificent Cuckold, directed by Antonio Pietrangeli, is a highly interesting film that might fall a little short for me, but I was entertained enough and, as Radiance does, introduced more niche work from around the world. The features help enlighten the culture of the time and place.