I thought [Love and Anarchy] crude in every way, particularly in its heavy use of reverse symbols: the brothel as a refuge of purity, the innocence of the would-be murderer and the whore and their sudden love, the whole clumsy good-for-bad pageant. There was, yet once more, much exploitation of '30s decor, and Wertmuller's camera movement was hyperthyroid.

The Seduction of Mimi … is a much better picture; so it's a bit depressing, because it was made before Love and Anarchy. Still, it lets us see the latter film as a slip, instead of a norm.

It's a much better script than Love and Anarchy, but it suffers somewhat from the same disease: the author's belief that mere choice of subject brings you halfway home. Over and over we watch scenes that are supposed to break us up, waiting for the moment that will take us over the...