The Witches

1969 "Woman as she is...all things to men!"
6| 1h51m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 12 March 1969 Released
Producted By: Les Productions Artistes Associés
Country: Italy
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

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Reviews

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.
Mjeteconer Just perfect...
VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
mevmijaumau I was severely disappointed upon finding out that this movie wasn't an anthology film themed around witches, but instead the segments don't have a clear connecting point other than the fact that each of them stars Silvana Mangano.The animated intro is my favorite part of the movie. It's creative, somewhat humorous and has a fantastic score playing in the background. However, it's completely misleading (same as the title), as it foreshadows a plot centered about witches.The first story (The Witch Burned Alive, dir. Visconti) is weak, boring and way too long. It's the longest segment and takes up a third of the movie's runtime. The story isn't all that interesting either.The second one (Civic Sense, dir. Bolognini) is easily the worst of all. It's a pointless story about a woman offering to take an injured man to the hospital. The punchline isn't really clever, the direction bland, and the story is surprisingly dull for lasting only four minutes.The third segment (The Earth as Seen from the Moon, dir. Pasolini) is the second worst. I'll give it credit for Totò's fun performance, but sadly everyone else is annoying in their role. The musical track that keeps playing gets aggravating quickly and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. The message of the story is clear only to Pasolini, and probably not even to him.The fourth story (The Girl From Sicily, dir. Rossi) has some potential, but lasts only four minutes and is over before it starts. It isn't given much time, which is shame because the plot is better than the first three story lines.The final story (An Evening Like The Others, dir. De Sica) is by far the best. Because of the plot and style, it's somewhat similar to Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits. Both Mangano and Eastwood are fun to watch and there are some clever shots and sequences, mostly the ones set in the wife's dream world. In the scene where she criticizes the comic books her son reads, you can see an issue of the comic book "Kriminal", about which I agree with her because that comic is horrible.All in all, there's no reason why this movie's premise shouldn't have been set around the actual witches.
madmad This one's a big-named Dog. The last segment, with Mangano and Clint Eastwood, is at least interesting, if only for a look at baby Clint, but ultimately goes nowhere. Big style, substance missing in action. Trivia note: in the first segment, filmed in Kitzbuhel, Austria, one of the press photogs is a Kitzbuhel local who was a ski instructor at the time, according to my husband who lived in Kitzbuhel around the same period. Yawn. I kept hoping something profound would happen. Hope was dashed. The Italians have a perfect word for this: Stupidagine!
RJC-99 The best 25 minutes of Clint Eastwood's career lurk inside this uneven grab bag of shorts by five directors, among them greats. So good is he in Vittorio De Sica's brilliant segment (as the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit who unleashes his wife's libidinous Walter Middy) that you wonder what would have happened had Eastwood done more comedy. His gifts were wasted on spaghetti and spurs.De Sica's imagination is the star here. The rest of the material is mildly charming, middling, dated, watchable only for Silvano Mangano, or, in the case of the Pasolini, dreadful.
Tom May This portmanteau film, comprised of 5 short efforts by noted Italian directors, is decidedly unsuccessful. The best 2 are Luchino Visconti's "The Witch Burned Alive" and "An Evening Like The Others" by Vittorio De Sica, and those are far from excellent, but are quite effective. The whole thing is dated in quite a negative way, although some of the visuals and music is impressive, particularly that tune in the first segment that Mangano dances to. What perplexes is the general lack of film-making invention in any of them - any surrealism is mild and far from interesting. Pasolini's piece is pretty objectionable and bizarre, yet with seemingly no reason to it, with two frankly farcical characters indulging in dull, insubstantial activities. It's just irritating and has no reason to its stilted madness. The "Sicilian Belle" "piece" is just inconsequential, worse even than the fairly tenuous "Civic Spirit". What this odd but tedious collection of films do all display is an attempt at style-over-substance modish cinema. The whole thing seems very half-hearted really, with few directorial or writing touches evident. The de Sica piece however, has quite a good use of fantasy sequences, using the sensuous Silvana Mangano to the full. In its favour it can be said to have style - at least in the de Sica and Visconti pieces - and a rather effective array of hair stylings for Mangano, who appeals in all of the pieces. Mangano makes no impression in the middle 3 segments, perhaps as she's a mute "Absurdity" in Pasolini's, and is a mere catalyst in the other 2. She's good enough in the bookending pieces though, creating some character, unlike any other performers. Clint Eastwood is pretty anonymous really, but the last piece does flow well, with inventive, sometimes bizarre sequences of Silvana Mangano's fantasies. Overall, a disappointment, but with compensations. Beware the Pasolini segment...! Rating:- ** 1/2/*****