La fortuna di essere donna

Marcello Mastroianni catches a picture of Sophia Loren adjusting her stockings and sells it to the girly magazines. Soon, she and her low-pressure fiance/lawyer are threatening the magazine and Mastroianni, but Loren dumps him. In return for not suing him, she'll accept his services in gaining a career. She's open-minded about what: model, movie star, wife of an industrialist, it's all one to her. But after an evening of passion, she begins her rise, first to agent/count Charles Boyer, then onto movie producers. Where will it end?

Alessandro Blasetti's high-speed comedy capitalizing on Signorina Loren's legs and the chemistry between her and Mastroianni -- this was their third movie -- is definitely a screwball, and while its pace of gags keeps it funny, it also shows one of the prime problems with screwball; in this one, everyone is a rotter, looking out for money and sex, since class, while mentioned, never appears; just occasional bouts of self-serving good manners. Still, you can see the seeds of what would become LA DOLCE VITA, with the paparazzi already cynically hard at work.