The film which made Risi the master of episode comedy should have been directed by Elio Petri, who is credited as screenwriter), produced by De Laurentiis and starred Alberto Sordi, but it was subject to a swap with Il maestro di Vigevano. It was described by its director as: “a series of exemplary portraits filled with deep distrust in the people who came out of the boom”. I mostri is a reflection on a country that was undergoing rapid anthropological mutation. Armed with irony and satire, Risi’s twenty episodes pour scorn on the average Italian’s bad habits. I due orfanelli is one of the shortest sketches (less than 3 minutes) that demonstrates the ability to ‘mock’ with a few basic features: just one single take on the steps of the Basilica dei Santi Pietro e Paolo in EUR in Rome. Two beggars, one blind man playing the guitar and singing, another lame man who asks for support from passersby but then, so as not to lose his earnings, he denies his friend the opportunity to get his sight back. A quick summary of caustic comedy and nastiness, it reveals the cynical and egotistical face of a society which exploits its weakest members, in Gassman’s sarcastic villain. La nobile arte, the episode which closes the whirlwind of monstrosity and is the longest at 17 minutes, is also the one with the most bitter humour. The characters of Guarnacci and Altidori, a boxing promoter who has seen better days and a punchdrunk former boxer who are attempting an impossible comeback, are comic masks behind which lies the desolation of people living at the margins of society and destined to fail. The strength of the story is all in the characterization of the two histrionic main characters that turns the ridiculous into the tragic: numb and clumsy bodies, the mumbled speech, that ridiculous and excruciating “So’ contento” (I’m happy) repeated by Gassman. The ending is typically Risi, with his darkest irony.

Alice Autelitano