‘Signore & Signori’ or — Brutally Funny?

Pietro Germi’s ‘Signore & Signori’ (1966), or ‘The Birds, the Bees and the Italians’, is an Italian sex comedy consisting of three tales of infidelity committed by a group of middle-class friends in the fictional Venetian town of Rezega. The first episode concerns an obnoxious local doctor who, worried about being cuckolded whilst he goes out partying, instructs a friend who he knows is chronically impotent to chaperone his young, attractive wife. The second is about a hen-pecked accountant who leaves his wife and kids for the beautiful barista who serves him his coffee. The third… well, let’s just say we’ll deal with that particular sexual hand-grenade when we get there.

Sounds like a load of light and frothy fun, right? And it would be if it wasn’t for the fact that Germi’s comedy is also jaw-droppingly savage in the viciousness of its attacks and all powered by a cynicism, bitterness and satirical bile that’s off the bloody charts!

There’s not a single likeable character. Everyone’s a total prick. Even the women. For example — what does the doctor do when his friend tells him in confidence that he’s impotent? Immediately tells everybody he knows whilst laughing his ass off! And this is just the start.

There’s no sweetness here and any lovely moment is deliberately set-up only to be viciously destroyed.

Take the plight of Osvaldo (an excellent Gastone Moschin), the accountant, who falls in love with the barista. Yes, he’s cheating on his wife but she’s so horrendous that we can at least understand the poor guy wanting to grasp a little happiness. Yet what the pathetic idiot goes through is so hysterically tragic that it’s enough to put you off marriage, love and even sex for life.

At his lowest point, and with nowhere to go, he suddenly remembers his mother. “Mama!” he cries with relief straight into the camera, “In this life there’s always mama!”

HARD CUT TO — his little grey-haired mama kicking him down the stairs of her apartment and hitting him with a stick whilst shrieking “Get out! I wish I was rich just so I could disinherit you!”

Although that’s nothing compared to the final story which is so unbelievably dark I’m reluctant to put it into words lest the vice squad arrest me. But for a rough idea…

A beautiful young woman visits the shoe-shop of one of the group of womanising husbands. He takes her into the store room to have his wicked way with her. Afterwards, as we see her leaving with a pair of expensive new shoes, he breathlessly telephones his friend to tell him about this stunning young woman whom he’s sending round to his establishment for a visit as she’ll do anything he wants if he takes good care of her, if you know what I mean.

Suitably satisfied, this friend then passes her onto the next friend who then does the same and so on and it’s extremely uncomfortable watching this woman being used in such a horrible fashion by this bunch of bastards. We know these men will have to face their comeuppance but what form will it take? We hope it’s severe.

And severe is putting it mildly because when the truth is discovered it’s about as cataclysmic as can be, and things only get worse, and funnier, when their wives inevitably find out. Although if we thought the crime these men have committed is shocking then that’s nothing compared to the solution which left me slack-jawed in disbelief that the film actually went there and did what it did. It’s also extremely pessimistic (or realistic?) with the message explicitly being — if you’re working class you’ll get thrown under the bus, but if you have wealth then the establishment will save you.

‘Signore & Signori’ co-won the Palme d’Or at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival and it’s easy to understand why because the way it combines ferocious attacks on rampant misogyny, middle-class hypocrisy and institutional corruption with blisteringly hysterical satire is absolutely astonishing (apparently Germi collected the prize with the words “Apologies for making you laugh”).

Germi’s comedies could always be brutal but this is something else entirely. That could be why it’s one of the funniest films ever made.