Belfagor le magnifique

Loosely based on the tale Belfagor arcidiavolo by Niccolò Machiavelli, This pathetic Italian comedy stars Vittorio Gassman as Belfagor, a member of the Devil's hierarchy, and Mickey Rooney as his toad-like assistant. Both are returned to Earth to disrupt the newly established peace between Florence and Rome in the year 1478. Belfagor is sent to attack the virtue of Maddalena, the daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Duke of Florence. Belfagor gets help from the little devil Adramelech (Rooney), does a lot of devilry, but falls in love with Maddalena. For her he will lose his horns and his immortality. Machiavelli's novella is used as a pretext for a moderately Boccaccian but totally unfunny farce.

The Devil In Love is interesting material, coming from Machiavelli and set during the Pazzi Conspiracy, 8 years of war between the Medici in Florence and the Church in Rome in the late 15th century. It thus combines the interest director Scola has taken over the years in convincing historical detail (here with Da Vinci and Savonarola) and his taste for broad popular comedy. The most stunning thing about the film is the use of color (cinematographer Aldo Tonti) : Gassman's sweeping appearance all in red, the costumes in orange, pink, purple and yellow. Unfortunately the jazzy music, the anachronisms, the use of zooms and the bizarre casting of an elderly Mickey Rooney as the sidekick distract from this pleasant opulence. The production values are ultimately marred by a lack of taste, a kind of crude vulgarity that turns up unfortunately in some other Scola films. Much better is the way someone like Mario Monicelli combined historical consciousness with humor in his film about the Crusades