‘Lucky to be a Woman’ or — The Conquering Curves?
Antoinette (Sophia Loren) is adjusting her stockings by the side of the Via Appia when opportunistic “glamour” photographer Corrado (Marcello Mastroianni) snaps her in this compromising and revealing position and it’s not long until her legs are plastered all over Rome’s many magazines covers. Seeing as she is only a lowly shop girl, and that those are her legs, Antoinette sets out to claim her fair share of any financial gain Corrado might’ve made but when the photographer suggests he can introduce her to powerful men, particularly movie moguls, Antoinette senses the chance to control not just her future but also her own image.
One of the early pairings of Loren and Mastroianni ‘Lucky to be a Woman’ (1956) was directed by the prolific, and talented, Alessandro Blasetti, written by Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Sandro Continenza and Ennio Flaiano and almost acts as a sort of pre-cursor to Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’ (1960) with its focus on the paparazzi, curvaceous stars and the Italian system of fame. Sure, compared to Fellini ‘Lucky to be a Woman’ might seem lightweight and frivolous (and this is a lightweight and frivolous movie) but that isn’t to say it doesn’t possess a deceptively sharp little edge, especially when it comes to delighting in trolling its own audience.
At one point Mastroianni has draped Loren in a towel for a photo-shoot. They both know she’s wearing a bathing costume and only pretending she’s naked underneath but, as he points out, that’s not what public will think before adding “They’re perverts”. And he’s right because that’s EXACTLY what we’re thinking!
And so the film plays mischievously coy and coquettish whilst displaying Loren voluptuous figure to us to such an extent that our jaws start dropping like anvils through the floor like we’re Tex Avery cartoons and then calling us out for our inevitable states of captivation. And it’s completely unfair because Loren, already one of the most beautiful women to have ever lived, has never looked more spectacularly stimulating as she does here, a cascading series of curves in motion piloted by a seductively tantalising smile.
You know that line in ‘Some Like it Hot’ (1959) when Jack Lemmon looks at Monroe’s wiggle and says she’s like “jello on springs”? Well, Monroe has nothing on Loren here (she’s so ridiculously voluptuous she makes Jessica Rabbit look positively androgynous).
But this was explicitly part of Loren’s appeal as her beauty suggested an unfettered, boundless natural thrust as opposed to an unattainable, urban, willowy chic. It’s why when Loren’s Antoinette visits a high-end Roman fashion house looking for employment the other models, all of whom are haughty, finely dressed sylphs, can only look on her with utter disbelief and envy. Not only that but she gets to look the way she does that AND eat what she wants?!
Loren also gets the film’s funniest gag when a rich gentleman offers her a lift in his expensive automobile to which she replies “Sorry, but I hate cars as much as cinema.” It’s a seemingly innocuous line but Sophia Loren delivering that comment to a theatre full of car-loving, cinema-obsessed Italians would’ve brought the house the down in 1956.
Yet the film’s strongest appeal is watching Loren and Mastroianni who both work so well together you can understand why their pairing was so incredibly successful and popular.
It’s not exactly a classic but ‘Lucky to be a Woman’ is a funny, stylish (some of the costumes here are simply wonderful), smart and incredibly enjoyable movie (it’s got a strong Capra influence) with something to say about fame, exploitation, the power of the image and what happens when, much like Loren did in real life, a woman takes control of hers.
And Sophia Loren has never looked more stunning. How stunning? Put it this way — it was only after the film had finished that I’d noticed I’d gnawed my way through my sofa.
