Woman Times Seven (1967)

Only in Italy where divorce is taboo would a film contemplate so deeply about having an affair! The guilt, the consequences, the subtle emotions, and the release. Set in romantic Paris with a Euro-lounge soundtrack by Riz Ortolani, Shirley MacClaine plays it sad, sweet, manipulative, shy, and insane in this vignette film of seven short stories, each with its own take on cheating.

The film opens with Paulette, a widow barely in mourning who negotiates her next romance with an somber but eager Peter Sellers under the disapproving eyes of the Funeral Procession. Then in Amateur Night a housewife finds her husband in bed with another woman and runs out of the house vowing to sleep with a stranger! Having no skills at seduction, she stumbles across a group of street prostitutes who school her in the arts of sex but even with their skills they are really no better at controlling their fickle men. Sympathetic to her betrayal, they urge her to use one of their clients as revenge to all boyfriends and husbands everywhere!

Then Shirley does some cunning lingual tricks speaking in Japanese and Arabic as a lavender-uniformed hostess and translator at a conference. It’s Two Against One when she brings two international playboys home to school them in the ideal platonic love she shares with her flight attendant roommate Bob. She gets naked and reads TS Eliot poetry, then projects slides of modern art on the walls. Shirley teases the men by jumping on the bed like a girl and then blames their sexual urges for the root of all wars. Worked into a frenzy both men start slapping each other in their underwear to prove which is more needy of her discipline, hoping the other will give up and leave. Seeing this display of manly aggression, she abandons the platonic Bob and decides to take them both at once (off camera of course)! Mmmmm.

In the most touching story, Edith is the bland wife of an author who creates an outrageous adventuress Simone whom he lovingly describes as always spontanious and unconventional. Taking this as her cue to spice up her own dull personality, Edith becomes Super Simone singing everything she says and rollerskating around the house in babydoll dresses. Instead of enchanting her husband with unexpected behavior, she frightens him into thinking she’s gone insane! It’s a bittersweet lesson in learning the difference between a man’s fantasy and the woman he actually wants.

Eve is the ball-busting wife of an unscrupulous industrialist who discovers her exclusive gown will be worn by another woman At the Opera. When the woman refuses to change her dress, Eve sets her husband’s company to the task of sabotage. Although this vignette is the loosest interpretation of the theme: being betrayed by your fashion designer, it turns out to be the funniest of the film and Shirley is a wonderful ruthless bitch who will go to any lengths to win!

In The Suicides, Shirley and Alan Arkin form a defiant suicide pact once their affair has been discovered by their spouses, but hesitate when the actual mechanics of killing themselves becomes too complicated. Clever dialog between the two makes this short feel like a one-act play, but it’s fun to see two great film comedians play off each other in such an unconventional situation. In the last vignette Snow, the shy Jean gets a thrill while out shopping when she discovers a young man is following her. Although nothing happens she spends the day in an innocent swoon, and acts guilty in front of her suspicious husband.