What a goofy choice for a film restoration, this campy, absurd, only mildly entertaining 1960 France-Italy coproduction (shot in Italian, here awkwardly dubbed into French) whose raison d'être is the stalwart international cast rounded up by filmmaker Jules Dassin. Or was it that everyone got to hang out on the Mezzogiorno coast, enjoying good pasta and swimming, during the shoot?
The mini-talented Gina Lollobrigida, she of the mammoth chest, is the fishing town's pussycat in heat, chased by the older men but yearning for a wedding ring from a visiting agronomist from the North (Marcello Mastroianni, sexually neutered).
Some spice is added by Yves Montand as a scarfaced town boss and Melina Mercouri (Dassin's wife) as a frustrated married lady enamored of a young guitarist. And there's one scene that's sizzling for 1960, in which Yves's lips go for Gina's omnipresent cleavage.
