Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9781572521155
Format: Color
ISBN: 1572521155
Label: Fox Lorber
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Release Date: 1999-02-23
Running Time: 108
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: 1974

This 1972 film by Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties, Swept Away) is a wild farce of the Sicilian milieu. Mimi (who is a man) is forced to leave his hometown when he can no longer get work as a result of voting against the local strong arms in a "secret" ballot. In the big city he finds work, but also finds that life there is very much as corrupt as it was at home. He falls in love and has a child by his lover, and when forced to take a job in his hometown again, he must hide his lover and their son from his wife. When he is too tired to please his wife in bed after making love all day to his lover, she becomes pregnant by another man, setting off a chain of events that ultimately lead to a public revenge scene that possibly has no rival. What's even more amazing is that the film manages to portray a complex protagonist in a searing comedy. A must-see, especially if you'd like a lighter view of the same world portrayed in The Godfather. --James McGrath

Customer Rating:
Summary: Warning: Standard Version image is cropped into Widescreen Version.
Comment: For: The Seduction of Mimi (1972)
Studio: Fox Lorber (A Winstar Company)
DVD Release Date: March 31, 1998

One Star for the DVD: To produce a cheep widescreen version - Fox Lorber Home Video has taken the movie's full frame image version and has cropped off the top and bottom part of the image. Fox Lorber simply removed part of the image just to please those of us who prefer the widescreen format. Many times during the movie the bright light will bleed over into the black cropped bars producing a glowing horizontal line within the black bars.

Five Stars for the Movie: A great movie! I cannot wait to buy a new DVD release of his movie that is Restored, Digitally Re-mastered and presented in its true original aspect ratio. Until then I will just have to settle for this piece of junk DVD transfer that I just paid $31.50 for.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Seduction of Mimi
Comment: This broad, clever satire on male hypocrisy and social convention is priceless, if you love the mournful comic countenance of actor Giannini, as I do. His Mimi is an artful creation, an ignorant, impetuous, bumbling fool you can't help but love. The machinations he undergoes to get back at his spouse will amaze and amuse. Don't miss the scene when the fat lady disrobes- it's deservedly the stuff of cinematic legend.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Conjugal Codes and Double Standards
Comment: The theme of this story is the prideful narcissism that leads a self-serving, dissatisfied laborer to create overwhelming obligations he cannot control in the context of social corruption and uncertain employment.
This story is culturally valuable because it depicts part of the life of one man in a very universal manner. Mimi is every man: he lusts, he is jealous, he is vulnerable, he wants job security, he has morals and he sometimes compromises them. At the same time, however, Mimi's predicaments are presented in such an exaggerated, humorous manner that they provide relief from the audience's own frustrations. On a more particular level, this film reveals the impact that the "mafia" had on Italian society at this time. Yet, even this is done in so humorous a way as to never seem upsetting. The bitterness of the events that take place--the loss of love, humiliation and misuse of women, the loss of value and the buckling of Mimi to corrupt social powers--are given to an audience with enough comical sugar to allow it to go down easily. And although women are shown objectified and humiliated in this society, the men who do it are shown to be victims of their own absurdities and social traditions as well. This film both exemplifies the dangers of being narcissistic and acting rashly on jealousy and desire, and provides comic relief for a world plagued with problems.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Mimi or Not Mimi?
Comment: After purchasing this DVD, and loving it, I still have a disturbing question: is this the same theatrical release version, which, according to Wertmuller, was criminally cut by New Line Cinema (the original distributor) by up to forty minutes? Do I have to go to Italy to find out?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Classic
Comment: Highlly recommen

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