The Lizards

The Lizards is that perennial Italian favourite, the portrait of small town loafers constantly hatching half-hearted plans but hopelessly trapped in their own lethargy. Wertmüller's first feature, it's not fundamentally very different from Fellini's I Vitelloni of a decade earlier, with Morricone's score a definite plus. Later, in the mid-'70s, Wertmüller became a dubious art-house smash hit in America with films like Love and Anarchy, Swept Away and Seven Beauties.