Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Reviews

This Italian sex trilogy teams up two of that country's biggest stars, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, with director Vittorio De Sica. The first and most interesting episode, "Adelina," features Loren as the title Neopolitan who is in trouble with the law and Mastroianni as her husband who discovers a legal loophole: pregnant women cannot be jailed until six months after the child's birth. Adelina duly gets pregnant, and pregnant again, and so on until her mate can no longer take it. "Anna" casts Loren as the Milanese wife of an industrialist who drops her lover (Mastroianni) after he nearly wrecks her beloved sports car. Lastly, in "Mara," the eponymous Roman prostitute (Loren) resists the temptation to seduce a young seminarian (Giovanni Ridolfi) who has fallen in love with her and even takes a one-week vow of chastity herself, much to the frustration of her most devoted client (Mastroianni). Although YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW won a Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award, it's hardly representative of the best work of its stars, director (UMBERTO D, THE BICYCLE THIEF, SHOESHINE), or screenwriters (Cesare Zavattini, De Sica's frequent collaborator, contributes "Anna" and "Mara"). It is, however, an enjoyable romp, buoyed by the professionalism of all concerned.