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Site created 12/15/97.
page created: 2/26/09
 Back to Page Three (Fanny)... NOTE: The scans below are the property of Robert Siegel and The Digital Bits, and may not be reposted without permission. Copyright of the images belongs to the respective studios. In addition, please note that all the information contained within the text is taken from ORIGINAL studio press materials, which may contain some errors. |
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Woman Times Seven Film appreciation by Robert Siegel of The Digital Bits With delectable Shirley MacLaine starring in the title role, renowned filmmaker Joseph E. Levine's rollicking color and widescreen comedy Woman Times Seven has been released for the first time on DVD by Lionsgate Home Video. The film was originally an Embassy Pictures release. Shirley MacLaine fascinates in this collection of seven sexy stories of love and adultery, set against the romantic backdrop of Paris. Whether she's playing an amorous widow, a meek housewife gone wild or a socialite who will literally kill for a dress, she gets the role right every time. The sequences are The Funeral Procession, Amateur Night, Two Against One, The Super Simone, At the Opera, The Suicides and Snow. In each section of the film, Shirley is able to play a completely different type of role to great expertise. [Continued below...] |
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Woman Times Seven is set, and was filmed entirely, in Paris. The exteriors are a connoisseur's collection of Parisian sites. They include the Champs de Mars park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the magnificent Paris Opera House, the turn-of-the-century Bir Hakeim Bridge, tiny Place Furstenberg on the Left Bank and the vast slopes of the Seine riverbank. Interiors were filmed at the Boulogne Studios, in a suburb of the ever-fascinating French metropolis. Among the sets are representations of Alexander's famous hairdressing salon, the Chez Moustache restaurant, and three complete residences of five to six rooms each. The gem of all sites, however, is the gigantic re-creation of the rooftops of Paris, which filled to capacity the biggest sound stage at Boulogne, an area almost the size of a football field, and was built at a cost of the then-expensive $150,000.
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 Publicity photos taken on location by Embassy Pictures. |
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The beautiful actress Shirley MacLaine had no less than five fascinating leading men - Alan Arkin, Rossano Brazzi, Michael Caine, Vittorio Gassman and Peter Sellers - for her co-stars in the picture, which was directed by the famed Vittorio De Sica. Woman Times Seven was the versatile Miss MacLaine's second film following a two-year hiatus from movie-making, in which time she journeyed to India in search of different values and answers to some questions that puzzled her. One of the main attractions for her to return to the screen in the film was the great desire to work with De Sica. In fact, Shirley had promised producer Levine that she would do a picture for him anytime, anywhere, if De Sica would be directing. When the Italian director called her and said he had been waiting ten years to do Woman Times Seven but until that moment hadn't found the right actress for the part, Shirley replied that she wasn't sure that he'd found her yet, but she welcomed the chance to try and certainly to work under his direction. The result is a colorful blend of their talents, and those of the scintillating stars who share stellar honors with Miss MacLaine in the picture. For one lavish scene in the picture, Shirley not only looks like, but wears a million dollars. She appears in a sequence filmed at the famous Paris Opera House wearing a $5,000 Pierre Cardin evening gown and one million dollars worth of diamonds from Van Cleef and Arpel, consisting of two tiaras, three bracelets, a glittering pair of earrings and a ring-set with a massive diamond measuring an inch in diameter.
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       The many characters played by Shirley MacLaine. |
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When asked during production how his new-found success affected him, Caine replied that he is investing in insurance policies instead of cars and other luxuries, so that he need never face the poverty of his early years ever again. "Success is very gratifying," he explained, "Because for ten years, friends said I'd never make it. At long last, it's my turn now, thanks to the public and the critics." Alan Arkin, another co-star of the film, was hailed as America's answer to Britain's Sellers (which is interesting, as Arkin would play Sellers' chief inspector Clouseau in a one time shot in Inspector Clouseau). At the time, the 33-year old New York born actor made a sensational movie debut in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. His performance as the young submarine officer in that first film immediately established him as one of the brightest new stars and also won him an Academy Award nomination. Director De Sica saw his initial screen appearance and wanted him for Woman Times Seven. The offer thrilled Arkin, who said, "De Sica has made some of the greatest films ever. He's a very humane, genteel, sensitive man. I think the world of him. This made my experience on the film such a pleasure." Arkin received most of his comic training with an American improvisational group called Second City, now very popular and well known. He spent nine months with them in Chicago and developed a large library of characterizations. His Broadway stage debut in Enter Laughing won him rave reviews and a successful long run. He went on to further acclaim and popularity with his co-starring role in Luv on Broadway, which Mike Nichols directed. Rossano Brazzi, at the time one of Italy's most romantic and popular leading actors, was considered the "Number one Casanova" of the Italian screen in the post World War II era. He was delighted to work in the comedy Woman Times Seven. Brazzi was a veteran of 116 motion pictures, including such Hollywood successes as Three Coins in the Fountain, The Barefoot Contessa, South Pacific and Summertime. He was also quite inspired to do work as a film director. "I've been in the film business for 25 years," he said. "When you're in front of a camera for so long, it's quite natural going behind it. I suppose I've absorbed the techniques." Despite his directing plans, he had no intention of giving up his acting career, instead hoping to work on either side of the lens. [Continued below...] |
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 Artist's concept of the film Woman Times Seven. |
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Best-selling author Casare Zavattini wrote the original screenplay for Woman Times Seven. He was considered one of the fathers of the Italian cinema, and began his friendship with De Sica before World War II, when he was a journalist anxious to make his name in screenwriting and De Sica was a romantic screen idol who wanted to direct. They made a comedy together called I'll Give a Million and then began to plan for serious pictures. Their significant and award-winning collaboration began in 1945 with Shoe Shine, and went on to include Bicycle Thief, Miracle in Milan and Gold of Naples. In speaking of his long-term associate, Zavattini said, "They say Vittorio and I are like café-au-lait. You can't tell which is the milk. But we are different. Vittorio knows how to please. He's not an actor for nothing. He uses diplomacy. But I'm loud - it comes from my exuberance and my timidity - and I'm a noisy and continual talker." With the start of filming Woman Times Seven, De Sica broke a bottle of champagne over a movie camera on the set. It was the director's traditional way of launching the shooting, and was also a revealing image of a master cinema craftsman who had been having a love affair with the screen for as long as he could remember. Riz Ortolani, the Academy Award winning composer, created, arranged and conducted the score. Many of Ortolani's theme songs had become popular hits, including Forget Domani from The Yellow Rolls Royce and More, the song from Mondo Cane which won the 1964 Grammy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.
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| Embassy Pictures, which released the film, spent more on the promotion of Woman Times Seven than any film before it. Deals were made with Capitol Records for soundtracks and several 45-rpm single releases. Sheet music, fashion shows, Gold Metal books, and touring the starts for local interviews worldwide were just part of the campaign that Embassy used for the film, and to great success.
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