Lina Wertmuller Collection (DVD Box Set) (DVD)

All Screwed Up

An anarchically outrageous comedy from Lina Wertmüller, ALL SCREWED UP is ripe for rediscovery, an accomplishment as impressive as the classics she made before and after: Love and Anarchy (1973) and Swept Away (1974).

It tells the story of Gigi (Luigi Diberti) and Carletto (Nino Bignamini), two Southern country boys who travel north to get work in Milan. Arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they join the labor movement and live in a communal home with other migrant workers, including some combative love interests. Their dreams of wealth devolve into a series of slapstick adventures, from an uproarious attempt at petty crime to the daily indignities of life in a restaurant kitchen.

A pointed satire that skewers the illusion of upward mobility, ALL SCREWED UP is essential viewing for fans of Lina Wertmüller. With exuberant and biting performances from Diberti and Bignamini, it's a comedy whose laughs stick in your throat.

Love & Anarchy

An epic tragicomedy from director Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties), LOVE AND ANARCHY plumbs the depths of fascist Italy from the perspective of a simple farm boy sent to kill Mussolini.

Giancarlo Giannini (The Seduction of Mimi) won the best acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his achingly sensitive portrayal of Tunin, a freckle-faced innocent who became an accidental anarchist. His contact in Rome is Salomè (Mariangela Melato), a prostitute with her own sob story. While they prepare for the assassination, Tunin falls in love with Tripolina (Lina Polito), which threatens the entire operation.

A film of operatic emotion and subversive comedy, LOVE AND ANARCHY is a powerful statement on the terror of fascism and the ignoble fates of those who challenged it.

The Seduction of Mimi

THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI is a raucous sex comedy that brought international fame to director Lina Wertmuller (Swept Away).

Giancarlo Giannini (Love and Anarchy) gives a wonderfully comic performance as the sad sack Mimi, a Sicilian laborer whose refusal to vote for the Mafia's candidate leads him to lose his job, his wife and his home. At rock bottom, he revives his spirits by falling in love with the beautiful, radical Fiorella (Mariangela Melato), with whom he starts a new life as a reliable husband and father. But the past comes back to haunt him, piling on comical complexities as all his energies surge into defending his honor, an obsession that has horrendous but hilarious consequences.

A blistering satire of Italy in the 1970s, THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI takes aim at a corrupt government, compromised labor leaders and the Neanderthal sexual politics of men in power, with uproarious results.