If you crossed "Meet the Parents" with "The Godfather" and filmed it 45 years ago in Italian, you might come close to "Mafioso," a black-and-white gem from 1962 whose appearance in local theaters is inexplicable but most welcome.

It features Alberto Sordi, a popular Italian actor best known in America for starring in two early Fellini films, "The White Sheik" and "I Vitelloni." The director, Alberto Lattuada, co-directed Fellini's first film, "Variety Lights," but was a successful director in his own right for decades. Among the credited writers is Age Scarpelli (the team of Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli), also responsible for "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" ,"Divorce: Italian Style" and "Big Deal on Madonna Street."

Simply put, "Mafioso" is about the strange vacation of Nino (Sordi), a foreman at a Fiat factory in Milan who decides it's high time to take his beautiful blond wife and two young daughters to his hometown of Sicily to meet the family. Much of the hilarity that ensues stems from the friction between Nino's urban sophisticate wife, Marta (Norma Bengell), and the quirky rural Sicilian characters who make up Nino's family and friends.

Also customary when visiting home is a visit to the town's patron saint, Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attanasio), who happens to be a mafia boss. Years before, as a teenager during World War II, Nino was protected by Don Vincenzo. Now, Nino is arriving at a perfect time for the old godfather, who has a problem that can be solved by a couple of bullets, and Nino has a debt to repay.
For Nino, it's an offer he'd better not refuse.

Lattuada has adapted a gritty neorealist style to suit his dark comedy and is in full command in the final half hour, when he ups the ante in surprising ways.
The humor never lets up. Marta finally gets in good with Nino's family when she does a waxing job on Nino's sister, who has one eyebrow extending across her forehead and a mustache. Not anymore; suddenly she is as lovely as actress Gabriella Conti was all along.

"You better get married before they grow back again," advises her father.

'Mafioso' Comedy. Starring Alberto Sordi, Norma Bengell. Directed by Alberto Lattuada. In Italian with subtitles. (Not rated. 105 minutes. At the Lumiere and Berkeley Shattuck.)