["Seven Beauties"] is a grotesque vaudeville show. It's one act after another, with political labels stuck on the participants so you'll know what you're watching. The players come on at a sprint; they're overly spirited—the juice of life oozes out all over the place in a chorus of "Mamma mia"s. Wertmüller dances around with a hand-held camera and hauls the acts offstage fast, swinging from pathos to burlesque so that audiences won't become restless….

"Seven Beauties" is a slapstick-tragedy investigation of an Italian common man's soul, set during the Second World War, with flashbacks to the thirties. (p. 104)

The satirical "Oh Yeah" song that opens the film has a good cabaret pungency (though the political montage that accompanies it is mediocre), and there is an imaginative moment of gallows-humor cheekiness when the emaciated Pasqualino woos the commandant by humming a little love song. On the...