The Pizza Triangle movie storyline. Oreste (Marcello Mastroianni), a middle-aged bricklayer, meets young Adelaide (Monica Vitti), a flower vendor, after a Communist rally. Adelaide convinces Oreste that she is deeply in love with him, and Oreste leaves his wife for her. They live happily together until Oreste introduces to Adelaide his friend Nello, a baker in a restaurant. Adelaide takes up with the gallant pizza-maker, eventually leaving Oreste when he finds out. Oreste starts a street brawl over the matter and accidentally causes Adelaide to be hospitalized.
Uncertain of whom she loves, Adelaide visits a psychiatrist, but, having found no solution to her problem, she attempts suicide. Upon her sister’s advice, Adelaide moves in with Ambleto, a good-natured butcher, but she leaves him when she is told of Nello’s attempted suicide, and, rushing to Nello’s bedside, she promises to marry him. Meanwhile Oreste has lost his job and become a bum. Adelaide sees him as she and Nello are on their way to church. She wavers; another fight breaks out, and by accident Adelaide is fatally wounded by Oreste with a pair of flower shears.
The Pizza Triangle (Italian: Dramma della Gelosia (Tutti i Particolari in Cronaca) and also released as Drama of Jealousy) is a 1970 Italian commedia all’italiana film directed by Ettore Scola and written by Scola and the famous screenwriter duo of Age & Scarpelli. It stars Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti, Giancarlo Giannini. It was coproduced with Spain and Spanish actors Manuel Zarzo and Juan Diego are dubbed into Italian. The film is available on DVD in Germany, released by WB as Eifersucht auf italienisch, and in Italy.
Film Review for The Pizza Triangle
The Italians, of course, did not invent the sardonic view of love and jealousy, but their moviemakers have been trying to leave that impres sion, occasionally with great success, as in, say, “Divorce, Italian Style.” “The Pizza Tri angle,” once specifically la beled “Drama of Jealousy,” and later “Jealousy, Italian Style,” arrived at the Trans Lux East yesterday, and earnestly essays to follow in the noble lampoon tradition of “Divorce.” It succeeds only sporadically in being really funny about either love or ??ealous??.
Its writer‐director, Ettore Scola, an old hand in the genre, (“The Magnificent Cuckold,” “Made in Italy,” “Let’s Talk About Women”), joined with a couple of other veterans, Agenore Incrocci (Age) and Furio Scarpelli (Scarpelli) in the script, which details the anguished and comic states of mind of a middle‐aged bricklayer (Mar cello Mastroianni), a roman tic flower vendor (Monica Vitti) and a simple, young pizza baker. Their lovelorn and eventually tragic triangle kids itself, its principals, Ro man‐style Marxism and other socio‐economic life styles but does not sustain any of these styles strikingly.
In his illustration, in color, Mr. Scola appears to have diluted the effectiveness of his basically thin antic. And, one is not quite certain, since it all ends of a decidedly sad note, whether his ribbing was meant to be jest after all. Since this triangle is one long flashback inquiry into the reasons for the heroine’s murder, the off‐screen exami nation and narration tends to be intrusive and confusing.
In any event, there are enough chuckles and a few guffaws en route to dispel most of these distractions. Mr. Mastroianni’s perform ance (which won him the top acting award at the Cannes Festival) as the bricklayer unhappily married to a fat harridan, who falls head over heels for Miss Vial at a Com munist workers’ street fair, seems reasonable.
One cannot seriously fault his portrayal of the dimwit ted, fumbling oaf who feels that the Communists (as much as the competition) are vaguely involved in the blighting of his affair with the appearance of the young pizza Lothario. Miss Vitti, coarsely plaintive as the equally simple‐minded dame who can’t make up her mind, quite rightly sounds as if she never stopped reading true confessions magazines. She is good for laughs as she keeps popping up at a hospital to the entertainment of the staff as the result of accidents and suicide attempts.
Giancarlo Giannini is prop erly woebegone as the con fused pizza Lothario. The unbilled Josefina Serratosa has a few ribald moments as Mr. Mastroianni’s outspok en wife, and Mr. Scola also gets quite a few entertain ing bits from some of his other supporting cast. And, he has come up with an out rageously comic vignette, as three lovers inspired by Swedish sex movies, try to come to a decision in a tryst in a cheap hotel, and end up in combat.
The Pizza Triangle (1970)
Directed by: Ettore Scola
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti, Giancarlo Giannini, Manuel Zarzo, Marisa Merlini, Hercules Cortez, Fernando Sánchez Polack, Gioia Desideri, Josefina Serratosa, Paola Natale
Screenplay by: Age & Scarpelli, Ettore Scola
Production Design by: Luciano Ricceri
Cinematography by: Carlo Di Palma
Film Editing by: Alberto Gallitti
Costume Design by: Ezio Altieri
Set Decoration by: Santiago Ontañón
Music by: Armando Trovajoli
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: April 30, 1970 (Italy), November 1, 1970 (United States)
Visits: 183