A Common Sense of Modesty

{{Infobox film

| name = A Common Sense of Modesty

| image = Il comune senso del pudore.jpg

| caption =

| director = Alberto Sordi

| producer = Fausto Saraceni

| writer = Alberto Sordi
Rodolfo Sonego

| narrator =

| starring = Alberto Sordi
Claudia Cardinale
Philippe Noiret
Cochi Ponzoni
Florinda Bolkan

| music = Piero Piccioni

| cinematography = Luigi Kuveiller
Giuseppe Ruzzolini

| editing = Tatiana Casini Morigi

| distributor = Medusa Film

| released = {{Film date|1976|df=y}}

| runtime = 126 minutes

| country = Italy

| language = Italian

| budget =

}}

A Common Sense of Modesty (Italian: Il comune senso del pudore) is a 1976 Italian anthology comedy film directed by Alberto Sordi and starring Sordi, Claudia Cardinale and Philippe Noiret.

Plot

The film consists of four segments. The plot centers on the changes in morality that involved Italian society in the 1970s, mainly focusing on the widespread circulation of erotic movies and magazines.

=First segment=

A mature worker, Giacinto, decides to celebrate his silver wedding anniversary bringing his wife Erminia to the cinema after a long time. Wandering around Rome, they innocently fall into a number of erotic movies. The couple is initially shocked, but soon start to be somehow fascinated by the sexual content.

=Second segment=

Ottavio Caramessa, a small-town teacher and writer, is hired as a director by a pornographic magazine, jumping suddenly from rags to riches with the help of his extrovert typist, Loredana. He is soon arrested but has no regrets, being certain to fight a noble fight against obscurantism.

=Third segment=

Tiziano Ballarin, the local magistrate of a small town in Veneto, takes strict measures against adult magazines. While the village is excited by his moralistic – and in some cases hypocritical – campaign, Tiziano's wife, Armida, becomes the target of one of the magazines her husband harshly fights.

=Fourth segment=

The award-winning German actress Ingrid Streissberg refuses to shoot a sodomy scene in a film adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover, produced by the hot tempered Giuseppe Costanzo (somewhat inspired by Dino De Laurentiis). Having invested a great amount of money, he tries everything to convince the star, and even hires a "group of experts" – among which a self-styled progressive priest – to assert the considerable social and cultural relevance of the scene.

=Epilogue=

The day of the premiere, all the characters express their favorable opinion about the movie.

Cast

; First segment

Alberto Sordi as Giacinto Colonna
Rossana Di Lorenzo as Erminia Colonna
Enrico Marciani as Jolly Cinema director
Macha Magall as the Countess in La cavalcata
Franca Scagnetti as trattoria waitress

; Second segment

Cochi Ponzoni as prof. Ottavio Caramessa
Florinda Bolkan as Loredana Davoli
Gisela Hahn as Ursula Keller
Silvia Dionisio as Orchidea
Giò Stajano as fashion photographer

; Third segment

Claudia Cardinale as Armida Ballarin
Pino Colizzi as Tiziano Ballarin

; Fourth segment

Philippe Noiret as Giuseppe Costanzo
Dagmar Lassander as Ingrid Streissberg
David Warbeck as Mellors
Renzo Marignano as Lady Chatterley 76 director
Giacomo Furia as Lady Chatterley 76 production manager
Armando Brancia as Mainardi
Manfred Freyberger as Ingrid's husband
Ugo Gregoretti as critic
Giulio Cesare Castello as second critic
Marina Cicogna as production advisor
Jimmy il Fenomeno as himself

== Production ==

The film was announced by Cineriz in 1975, as an omnibus comedy film starring Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Monica Vitti and Paolo Villaggio, each one directing his segment.

== Release ==

The film was released in Italian cinemas by Cineriz on 10 April 1976.{{Cite book |last=Giusti |first=Marco |author-link=Marco Giusti |title=Dizionario Stracult della commedia sexy |date=2019 |publisher=Bloodbuster edizioni |isbn=978-88-943385-3-9 |pages=173–5 |chapter=Il comune senso del pudore}}

Reception

Film historian Rémi Fournier Lanzoni described A Common Sense of Modesty as "a courageous film, as it represented a difficult subject and in particular the immaturity of an Italian public poorly prepared to face the amorality of the pornographic film industry and the subsequent sottocultura (mass subculture) it provided".{{cite book |last1=Fournier Lanzoni |first1=Rémi |title=Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies |date=2008 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-0-8264-1821-0 |language=en}} Domestically, the film was a box office success, grossing over 1,700 million lire.