Alberto Nardi’s business isn’t going too well. Creditors are hounding him, the next installment on his mistress’s fur coat is due and the lifts designed by his company may be about to precipitate a lawsuit. The eternal optimist, he’s nonetheless supremely confident that something will turn up. All he needs is for his wife Elvira to secure his latest loan and tide him over till then...
Unfortunately for Alberto, Elvira is far smarter than he is and easily sees through his schemes – and, for that matter, those of the other businessmen who consider him an easy mark – and refuses to bail him out, much to his embarrassment and annoyance...
At this point fate intervenes as the train carriage in which Elvira was travelling is involved in an accident, plunging into a lake with the presumed deaths of all on board. Alberto can hardly hide his glee, though does his best to act with appropriate solemnity at the hastily arranged funeral.
It is at this point, of course, that Elvira, who had ironically missed the train on account of an ill-timed telephone call from Alberto, unexpectedly resurfaces, alive and kicking.
Humiliated and embarrassed still further, Alberto thus decides that if the mountain will not come to him, he will go to it and plots for Elvira to suffer an ‘accident’...
Besides showcasing the considerable talents of director Dino Risi and Alberto Sordi and being a damn funny black comedy with a lot to say about Italian mores circa 1959 and thus well worth seeing in its own right for anyone interested in Italian cinema generally, Il Vedovo proves also to have a number of points of interest for the giallo fan in the form of the modernist high-rise in which Alberto and Elvira live, the importance of the telephone to the plot and Alberto’s choice of murder weapon: the elevator.
Do yourself a favour if you get the chance...
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