Seduced and Abandoned Reviews

Complications aplenty arise when Puglisi seduces Sandrelli, the 15-year-old sister of his fiancee, Biggio. The girls' father, Urzi, puts an end to Peppino's engagement to his older daughter and demands that the unscrupulous Lothario marry the younger, when it is revealed that she is pregnant. When Puglisi has other ideas, the angry father decides to do away with this plague on his kin, but the police intercede and present Puglisi with their own ultimatum: marry Sandrelli or serve time for seducing a minor. Reluctantly, Puglisi chooses a figurative ball and chain over a literal one, although Sandrelli has some thoughts of her own about the matter. Meanwhile, Urzi has found a new fiancee for Biggio--the ne'er-do-well Trieste. Mixing fantasy and reality, shifting from present to past, and moving in and out of his characters' minds, director Germi (whose script for DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE was nominated for an Oscar) creates an occasionally amusing but generally undistinguished slice of Sicilian life here.