This 1962 Italian release is charming then funny then sad. An exuberant Sicilian son—who moved to Milan to become a factory efficiency expert—takes his new family to meet his toothless parents, mustachioed sister, and the local Don, who ensnares him in an improbable plot. It’s sweet with a bitter moral, like crushed aspirin at the heart of a bonbon—whether in industrial Milan or mafioso Sicily, we cannot escape being part of vast machines. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755. See Movie Times, p. 89, for details.)
Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua.... More by Brendan Kiley