Mostly funny, but I'm curious as to how it played in Italy on its release, or even today. There's a lot of anti-Italian sentiment still rummaging around in this country and the film certainly played to stereotypes, which made it a hilarious film to the audience I saw it with.
The context issue that jumped out at me is that, to northern Italians in the 1960s, Sicily was like another country. They regarded it the way present-day Americans regard Mexico. I know that the various Italian regions were really separate countries, with their own (mostly non-Italian) rulers, until the mid-19th century, and I have read that regional identities still trump the national identity much of the time.
shareThey're not specifically Italian stereotypes. They're more poor-people stereotypes, reflecting the way city folk view hillbillies -- low class trash, backward country bumpkins, toothless, unkempt, that sort of thing. The film probably plays in Italy the way something like Hee-Haw plays in the U.S.
share