WOMAN TIMES SEVEN is one of those portmanteau films beloved of filmmakers of the Fifties and Sixties linked by an abstract theme or authorial voice. In this case, it is adultery. The third is a modern sex farce about a beautiful UN translator who has become so jaded about men that she has idolized her platonic relationship with a gay roommate. Meanwhile she reads poetry in the nude and invites two playboy dignitaries to her bed while she shows them slides of modernist paintings. the handsome men humor her bizarre quirks while trying to get the other to leave, a testament to men putting up with any amount of femcrazy to get laid. But then the makers would argue it was intended as a joke, which is scuppered in that it doesn't make you laugh. You could see why MacLaine and all her famous co-stars wanted to work with De Sica, as even at this stage he had some clout in the international arena, but it was only she who was offered very much interesting to do as the others barely registered. You go, hey, it's Michael Caine, but then he doesn't get any lines, or go, hey, it's Alan Arkin, but then the subject of a joint suicide comes up in his section and you don't feel much like giggling. Elsewhere, former Tarzan Lex Barker was a pretentious writer concocting a ludicrous fiction about his ideal woman who a dowdy Shirley wishes to live up to, making herself silly in the process, again, there's a germ of an intriguing notion but it's underdeveloped when there's barely ten to fifteen minutes to do it justice. Only the anecdote that Lord Lucan apparently auditioned for a role has Woman Times Seven remembered much today, but if you wanted to see what pseud trendsetters considered sophisticated in 1967, here it was. Music by Riz Ortolani. It's always a bit sad when you remember a movie for so long, with such joy, and then finally when it comes out on DVD and you rush to view it, well, as Mr. Wolfe likes to say: "You can't go home again". I first saw this movie as a little boy, sneaking into the neighborhood theater. "Woman's Times Seven" was, after all one of those "foreign films" (though not really), and I was told that no self respecting all American boy should see it. So I was there the first day it opened. For a little boy, seeing Shirley Maclaine reading TS Elliot in the nude, or running around with heart-of-gold prostitutes was enough to proclaim this a masterpiece. For some strange reason this was a movie that didn't find its way onto regular TV, or even cable (or perhaps I just missed it), and only recently came out on DVD. So it remained as a great film in my mind all these years.

The next two segments are similarly thin plot devices. Maria Theresa (MacLaine) finds her husband with another woman and decides to find a man on the street to be unfaithful with, even if she has to be a prostitute for a night. It's a bit shaky in its exposition but manages a few laughs. Then, as Linda, we see rather a great deal of MacLaine as a brainy nudist who leads two horny men to her apartment to discuss art and poetry. Other than getting naked (in ways that shield her from us if not the guys), Linda doesn't make much with the time given her, and the sequence limps to a wet, predictable conclusion. The second character is a prudish wife who after discovering her husband and her best friend in bed, runs out of the house vowing to have sex with the first random man she meets. Instead she finds sympathy in a group of prostitutes who exchange war stories about love and men. For all their sexual experience they don't seem to have a better grasp on relationships, and an instant sisterhood bridges their social divide. However, the reason I call this review "woman minus six", is that the movie is completely redeemed by the seventh and final story, called "Snow". A simple story, the most beautifully photographed in the streets of Paris, shows two best friends, Maclaine and Anita Ekberg on a shopping day, being pursued by what they believe to be a young smitten wannabe lover. In sweet simple scenes you follow the "suitor", (played with elegant grace by Michael Caine… and without one word of dialogue!) as he seems to pursue these two women. When they decide to split up after lunch to see which one he truly is after (although Ekberg does say: "Maybe he wants us both, he could be one of those moderns) Maclaine. to her joy, finds that he continues to follower her. Other than MacLaine, the common elements in the film are the score, the Paris setting, and a common thread of romantic hopes found wanting. The subtitle mentions "7 Stories Of Adultery," which is more than a bit of exaggeration. Woman Times Seven ( Italian: Sette volte donna) is a 1967 sex comedy anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It consists of seven segments, all starring Shirley MacLaine, most of which deal with aspects of adultery.

I won't spoil the ending, but this truly was a pure, finely crafted story, which says more about women, their needs, hopes, desires, fears and fantasy's, in fifteen minutes, than most movies do in two hours. Leading a walking funeral procession behind the hearse containing the remains of her late husband, a widow is propositioned by her family doctor. Vittorio De Sica has a cameo as one of the mourners. The concepts of adultery in the film have a European flavor. For example, Vittorio Gassman's character reminds Clinton Greyn's character that divorce is, at the time of filming, impossible for an Italian.

The scenarios in WOMAN TIMES SEVEN all deal with adultery and the relationships between the sexes. Reading the premises of each, they feel like prime opportunities for dark comedy: a meek housewife tries embodying her husband's silly sexual fantasies in the flesh, two lovers squabble over how they should carry out their suicide pact, a widow is seduced behind her husband's funeral procession, a faithful wife is tempted by the handsome detective her jealous husband hired to trail her, etc. However, they don't play very funny, despite the best efforts of MacLaine and her court of co-stars. I can't quite put my finger on why. Humor is indeed subjective, but I found a lot of the humor fell flat. I either found the characters too annoying or too pathetic to laugh at, and sometimes the comedy was just stupid (the one with the nude translator just felt so juvenile). Edith goes shyly into her husband Rik's study, where he is smoking his pipe with his Great Dane by his side, he reads his latest chapter about his fictional creation: Simone. Woman Times Seven is a collection of vignettes about seven random women (not adultery, as the synopsis claims) all played by Shirley MacLaine, and all the women are different. That's the whole point, they are different - one is shy, one is a prude, one is a bitch, one is even boring! They end up in different situations, some ridiculous, some poignant. There is no over-arching thread or moral to bind them together. They are character studies more than plots, something American audiences may not appreciate. Some vignettes are left unresolved, some are broad comedies, some are bittersweet. If you are waiting for the punchline it isn't always here, but sometimes it is, leaving the overall flow bumpy and uneven.At a party a Scotsman and an Italian are invited to her room where she reads T. S. Eliot in the nude and starts bouncing on the bed. They all three sit on the bed and watch her slide show of art works. The men have a slap fight whilst the photo of her lover in military uniform looks on sternly from a shelf. She throws the picture out and moves to seduce both.