1962's "Mafioso" leaps from funny to disquieting
The streets of his boyhood village get a little meaner for Nino (Alberto Sordi) in Alberto Lattuada's 1962 "Mafioso." (Rialto Pictures)

Walking through an auto-assembly plant in Milan, Antonio Badalamenti is the portrait of calm, managerial efficiency.

So later in the 1962 Italian film "Mafioso" when he arrives with wife Marta and their towheaded girls at the Sicilian village of his youth, his goofy, boyish ways are a sweet surprise.

More startling still is the fact that 28 years before Michael Corleone shouted, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in," Alberto Sordi's Nino faced a similar misery in director Alberto Lattuada's black- and-white pleasure.

We know Nino well. He's one of those "local boy makes good" characters. He left the south for the north, where he landed a fine job and a petit-bourgeois life. He married a blond lovely, played by Norma Bengell. He has done both his village and benefactor, Don Vincenzo, proud.

Before Nino departs for his rare vacation, the factory honcho calls him in to praise him and also give him a gift for Don Vincenzo. The manufacturer is from New Jersey, but his people are from the same village.

The first act of "Mafioso" is funny and familiar. In all their years of marriage, Nino has never introduced his parents to his wife. Initially the meeting is extra-virgin olive oil and water. After a day of absurd introductions and bumbling interactions, Nino asks his peasant parents what they think about his mate. They answer in unison that she's stuck-up.

Of course, Marta's more aloof than cold, more modern than her uneducated in-laws. Her post-meal cigarette might as well have been a post-coital smoke it so shocks those gathered at a table.

This being the stuff of comedy, everyone will likely warm to one another. A thaw begins when Marta solves her sister- in-law's facial-hair problem. The minor miracle occurs just as Nino is called on to do a favor for Don Vincenzo, played by the director's father in-law, Ugo Attansio.

Early on, Lattuada provides grimly amusing hints of what simmers beneath the sun-hardened village. As Nino and family ride into the town, their taxi pulls up to a restaurant. A diner seems like a PSA for "relaxed mood of village life." But behind him lies a body. Nino asks what happened, then looks mortified at the steely answer.

Later as the family heads to Don Vincenzo's compound, they walk through silent, empty, but keenly watched streets.

Southern sunniness is eclipsed by suspicion, ritual and power plays. The favor the Don asks of Nino is jarring, sad and should not be spoiled.
The four writers responsible for this strange, entertaining and disquieting film all had considerable experience with comedies. Sordi, too, came from a comedic background.

Perhaps then it shouldn't be surprising that "Mafioso" leaps with great agility from a cheeky family romp to the gangster movie of the title.
One could argue that Nino deserves his rude awakening. But c'mon, Amerigo Bonasera only had to make Santino Corleone look good in his casket to repay his debt.

When he is spirited away one night, Nino asks one of the Don's men about the journey's length. It's a long then short trip, he is told.

What a long, short, strange trip "Mafioso" turns out to be.

NOT RATED|1 hour, 39 minutes|DRAMA|Directed by Alberto Lattuada; written by Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli; in Italian with English subtitles; photography by Armando Nannuzzi; starring Alberto Sordi, Norma Bengell, Gabriella Conti, Ugo Attanasio |Opens today at Landmark's Chez Artiste.