Divorce Italian Style

Plot

Ferdinando Cefalù is desperate to marry his cousin, Angela, but he is married to Rosalia and divorce is illegal in Italy. To get around the law, he tries to trick his wife into having an affair so he can catch her and murder her, as he knows he would be given a light sentence for killing an adulterous woman. He persuades a painter to lure his wife into an affair, but Rosalia proves to be more faithful than he expected.

About Divorce Italian Style

Divorce Italian Style (Italian: Divorzio all'italiana) is a 1961 Italian black comedy film directed by Pietro Germi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alfredo Giannetti, Ennio De Concini, and Agenore Incrocci, based on Giovanni Arpino's 1960 novel Un delitto d'onore (English title: A Crime of Honor). It stars Marcello Mastroianni, Daniela Rocca, Stefania Sandrelli, and Leopoldo Trieste. In the film, an impoverished Sicilian nobleman is trapped in a loveless marriage. Divorce is illegal, so he starts fantasizing about uxoricide. In the belief that honor killings involving adultery result in light sentences for the killers, he schemes to find a lover for his wife in order to have an excuse for an honor killing. His plan meets with a number of unexpected complications. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, two Golden Globe Awards and numerous other international film prizes. In 2008, it was included in the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978".

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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