In Common Cause

The Birds, the Bees and the Italians. Pietro Germi's boisterous travelogue through the bedrooms of a small Italian city was originally called simply Signore e Signori; its hoked-up English title is about its only flaw.

The theme is adultery, and the assembled husbands of Trevise provide a hilarious survey of some of the resultant absurdities. One, Alberto Lionello, comes sniveling to a doctor friend, bemoaning a sudden attack of impotence. The doctor (Gigi Ballista) trustingly leaves Lionello to keep his wife company while he goes off for fun and games, returns a few hours later to find to his horror that the patient is miraculously cured.

Another (Gastone Moschin) walks out on his nattering wife to find comfort as generously dispensed by a cafe hostess (Virna Lisi). His friends envy his conquest and join forces with the wife to hound him back to domesticity. Yet, an intruding enemy can unite all men in common cause. When a teen age peasant girl (Patrizia Valturri) is entertained by the husbands in an afternoon of collective amiability, and later hauls them before a judge, they take up a collection to buy her off and rescue the community's honor.

The appeal of Germi's storytelling, as in his earlier Divorce--Italian Style, comes about largely through his impeccable feeling for pace. Birds spins out its simple material for nearly two hours, but every breath and heartbeat seems to occupy exactly the right amount of time. And Virna Lisi, whose surface adornments Hollywood's cameras have already thoroughly explored, emerges under Germi's unhurried guidance as an actress of depth as well.

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