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Seven Beauties | 
| Director: Lina Wertmueller
Actors: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore, Enzo Vitale
Studio: Fox Lorber
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 41712
Format: Ntsc, Subtitled
Languages: English (Original Language), Italian (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 6305069638
UPC: 720917504025
EAN: 9786305069638
ASIN: 6305069638
Theatrical Release Date: January 21, 1976
Release Date: April 27, 2004
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From Amazon.com
Lina Wertmueller's harrowing 1976 film stars Giancarlo Giannini as a petty crook with seven unattractive sisters to support, and it features a picaresque, World War II-era journey through a prison asylum, army service, and a Nazi concentration camp. Wertmueller is more indulgent in highbrow sadomasochism than she is real profundity, but there's no denying that the film is powerful in its story of subjugation and survival. A climactic scene in which Giannini saves his skin at the camp by seducing its disgusting female commandant is unnervingly honest. Giannini became a '70s international icon partially on the basis of this work. The DVD release has optional English and Italian soundtracks, production notes, and filmographies of the talent. I--Tom Keogh/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Swept Away May 29, 2004
Wm Greenwood (New York)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is not the original R rated version I saw in New York City in 1977. It is edited into mediocrity! Sincerely, Wm Greenwood
Worst Movie I've ever seen- bar none May 6, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Highlight of movie: Concentration camp prisoner committs suicde by dving into a cesspool. Need I say more?
 one of my favorite films. April 2, 2004
Antonio Giusto (Toronto, Ontario Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is was one of my favorite films. I was a bigger Wertmuller fan before I started to watch Fellini and Antonioni's films. Wertmuller was very heavily influenced by those two. Influenced to the point where you can really see their styles in her films. For me that kinda started to take away from my appreciation of her films. I don't think she ever really did develop her own style. Giancarlo Giannini makes up for all of that. My main reason for taking such interest in Wertmullers films is cause of Giancarlo Giannini. Without Giancarlo I think all of Wertmullers films would be complete crap. Anybody who doubts his talent or acting range should be advised to watch this film and then watch Love And Anarchy. It's like watching two completely different people. pSeven Beauties is a film about one mans struggle to survive while at the same time losing his soul piece by piece. People may debate that statement. People are morons. On my planet that's what this movie is about. Though Giannini's character at some points in the film may seem a bit cartoonish he does definitely deliver his greatest performance. The film is set in Italy and Germany during WWII. His character Pasqualino "Settebelezza" is a lady-killer and a small time crook who finds himself moving from one enormous struggle to another. This almost never ending string of bad luck he's having begins after per suing a personal vendetta with a local pimp (if you will) that end's in murder. Throughout this film Pasqualino finds himself in jail, a mental institution, and a concentration camp. p A lot of people may find this film disturbing. Some scenes are depicted quite graphically and also deal with situations of a morbid nature. Though I do think very highly of this film I can also understand if someone really doesn't like this film. It's not for everyone.
Hideous! February 23, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I knew that this film was a turkey from the get-go: Archival footage of war catastrophe accompanies an obnoxious voiceover of some guy repeating ad nauseam, "oh yeah! oh yeah!" Fighter pilots crash and burn, and we have this annoying, idiotic, "oh yeah, oh yeah." pThere's a beautifully photographed scene shortly after this, set in a lush German forest. The camera should have stayed in that shot. Watching the green leaves sway outpaces everything to come. I thought the mass grave shooting was handled with taste. In fact, it's less shockingly portrayed than the gross Italian dance hall bit that follows, a sequence that runs on entirely too long, close-ups of an unattractive, untalented woman who is later thrashed around by her brother, the Giancarlo Giannini character -- a man who's impossible either to care about or laugh at. Awful, sick, repellent, and worst of all, empty and uninsightful. pPeople, just because a movie is unpleasant does not make it a masterpiece. I like difficult, challenging films; Seven Beauties, however, is squalid junk posing as art.
 Superb on many levels January 3, 2004
P. Bianco (Toronto)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A unique and creative director, Wertmuller makes films for the thinker: as Seven Beauties unfolds, the viewers thoughts grow from interest to concentration to awe as she manages to combine many hysterically comedic moments in the midst of life's darkest struggles with the depths to which the proud can fall, given the circumstance. pGiannini depicts the pomposity of the common man who prostitutes himself for survival - ironically committing the same transgression as a woman for which he killed to start the whole anguishing sequence of events. The gifted actor uses pathos to maintain affinity with the viewer - in the end, your heart is with him despite everything. pThat Lena Wertmuller succeeded in making the films she did in such a patriarchal society is thankfully to our benefit today.
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