Slysistrata in Sicily

Jessica (United Artists). "I have to hurry," says the young American widow (Angie Dickinson) who has just become midwife to the village of Forza d'Agro, Sicily. "I have to deliver a baby." The young Sicilian farmer grins slyly and replies: "If the baby is a boy, he will wait." The rest of Forza d'Agro's male population is not so subtle in its compliments. As Angie joggles over the cobblestones on her Vespa, the baker watches her out of sight while absently patting two round loaves of bread, and the farmers' furrows develop empathetic curves. The women of the village can't exactly blame Angie. She does nothing to attract the attention she gets. She simply goes about her business, and what's more goes about it with professional skill. "She's good, she's honest, she loves her work," says the village matriarch (Agnes Moorehead). "How can we get rid of her?"

The answer comes from Aristophanes. Like the Athenian women in Lysistrata, the women of the village call a sex strike -- one of them describes it as "a sit-up strike" -- to take the men's minds off Angle. But Angie solves their problem by getting her own man (Gabriele Ferzetti).

Meno male, as the Italians say: it could be worse. But the setting that Director Jean Negulesco ( Three Coins in the Fountain) has chosen for his story could hardly be better. Forza d'Agro sits on a moun tain ledge 1,400 ft. above the Strait of Messina. Far below, the placid Mediterranean lies to the horizons like a single dark blue tile. Far above, Mount Etna looms like a vast white tent set up for God. And all around, the hot yellow hills stand up in jagged pinnacles, like dragon's teeth that may at any moment change into giants. To make such a picture in such a place is to scatter sticky candy wrappers at the gates of heaven.

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