This 1966 Italian cult anthology film isn't on DVD yet, so the only way you can catch it is at revival houses (currently, it's playing at the historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA.) — it may be worthwhile from a cinephile's completist standpoint (it features the gorgeous Silvana Mangano, there's an evocative music score by Ennio Morricone, clever camera work by Giuseppe Rotunno, and one of the mini-movies is directed by the lauded Vittorio De Sica and features a young Clint Eastwood).

But aside from that, Le Streghe: The Witches plums the depths of each and every cliché that's given some Italian filmmaking a bad name (incomprehensible plots, idiotic slapstick, pervert-peeping, shocking sexism, inappropriate histrionics, political and sociopolitical self-indulgence, and so on).

There are five parables in all, each starring producer Dino de Laurentis's wife, the aforementioned Mangano, looking weary yet regal and lovely). None of them were supernatural (don't be fooled by the title), although a couple of them do feature murders which could be loosely construed as "horror-like" (I'm being exceedingly generous here).

The first story, The Witch Burnt Alive, focuses on a famous actress and model who's always "on" and is tired of the glamorous life. All the lady wants is to settle down and have a baby, but her husband (boyfriend? Manager? I'm not sure, as he's only revealed during a very long, tedious phone conversation and we never see or hear him) keeps making her get abortions.

Here's an opportunity for some furious fetal phantoms, but no such luck. The only thing I liked about this segment was the flashback fashion — there are some kooky costumes, cool 60s cat-eye makeup, outrageous fur coats, feather boas, glitz and glitter, and so on. That's not much reason to recommend it, but it's something if you're feeling façade-y. This one's directed by Luchino Visconti, who famously sneered about his peer, Michelangelo Antonioni [Blow-up, The Passenger] "It seems that boredom is one of the great discoveries of our time. If so, there's no question but that he must be considered a pioneer." Visconti should talk. However, there's a fairly intriguing modern-day tabloid paparazzi vibe, which proves nothing's really new these days in terms of star-scrutiny.

The second story, a super-short one called Witch In A Hurry (aka, Community Spirit), is a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of a tale that's basically nothing more than a crazy woman-driver who, after causing a delivery man to crash his truck, gives him a lift to the hospital… or so she says. Actually, she keeps passing hospitals (there sure are a lot of them in that city!), high-heeled tootsie on the accelerator and mind on her own troubles, as her annoying, injured passenger keeps whining about how he's bleeding. The "surprise" ending is simply stupid.  

If you can stomach the third in this compendium, The Earth to the Moon, then you must have stock in the company that produces Pepto Bismol. Featuring two cartoony characters with horrid makeup and ever worse wigs (think: Benny Hill meets Jerry Lewis while channeling Howdy Doody as the Three Stooges, minus Larry), the story is about a recent widower and his son who are actively on the lookout for a new wife/mom. The mugging buffoons find the perfect female in a deaf, dumb and blind brunet, and that is so not funny. There's even a banana-peel slip and fall. Again: So not funny. It's directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, famous for being a precocious poet who was later kicked out of the Communist Party for being a closet homosexual.

The fourth installment, helmed by Franco Rossi, is about a serial killer who blames a his daughter's deceitful fiancée for his own sick drives; and the fifth and final is noteworthy mainly because it stars Clint Eastwood as a spouse so boring, his wife is obliged to escape into a dream-world populated by the superhero likes of Flash Gordon and Batman. It's directed by the Oscar-nominated auteur (for A Farewell to Arms in 1957) Vittorio de Sica.

If you don't mind message films broached as broad comedy mixed with appalling chauvinism, then maybe Le Streghe: The Witches wouldn't be too terribly painful. It's got something going for it in that it's a hard-to-find cult film; but in my opinion, it should stay that way.

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