By Michael Fox      Friday, April 13, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY/ Pick of the week
The Original Godfather
Imagine you got your swell job at that ad agency or Internet giant through the influence of a certain Mr. Big back in your hometown. And when you return to that sleepy burg for the first time in years with your wife and kids, he has a small favor he'd like you to do. That's the dark, devious premise of Mafioso, a harrowing Italian comedy directed back in 1962 by the underrated Alberto Lattuada. Essentially unknown in this country and unearthed from the vaults by the Rhino Records of art-house filmdom, Rialto Pictures, Mafioso glides from farce to satire to terror without breaking stride. The great Alberto Sordi stars as a beefy, relentlessly efficient Fiat foreman who married a high-style Milan hottie and has the world on a string. Proud of his success and eager to show off, he hauls his brood on vacation to his Sicilian birthplace. For a while this sly movie is content to parlay the inevitable culture clash into a sharp-edged send-up of both modern Milan and rural Sicily -- then it raises the stakes and jettisons the laughs. Mafioso has a touch of the sweetness that one expects from a Faustian comedy, but with the punch of an espresso chaser. By the way, what's on your résumé?