Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1976

The Contenders:

William Holden: Network
Peter Finch: Network (winner)
Sylvester Stallone: Rocky
Giancarlo Giannini: Seven Beauties
Robert De Niro: Taxi Driver

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1976

The Contenders:

Cousin, Cousine
The Front
Network (winner)
Rocky
Seven Beauties

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1976

The Contenders:

Alan J. Pakula: All the President’s Men
Ingmar Bergman: Face to Face
Sidney Lumet: Network
John G. Avildsen: Rocky (winner)
Lina Wertmuller: Seven Beauties

Not Another War Movie

Film: Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

With the movies that are on my Oscar list that are harder to find, I sometimes have to make some sacrifices. Watching a YouTube version of the film is one of those sacrifices. Another is finding a clearly foreign movie only available dubbed rather than subtitled. There’s not much to be done about that, though. Seven Beauties (or Pasqualino Settebellezze) is a true piece of cinematic history, and you don’t really get those that often. Director Lina Wertmuller was the first woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

The film is told in a series of flashbacks from the point of view of our main character, Pasqualino Frafuso (Ginacarlo Giannini), better known as Pasqualino Settebellezze, or Pasqualino Seven Beauties. The name comes from the fact that he has been forced to take charge of his mother and seven sisters, all of whom are fairly homely to downright unattractive. Thus his name is sarcastic at best. What he wants more than anything is to marry his sisters off, something that is nearly impossible because of their looks.