The work of Fabrizi, a great comic with directing ambitions who had more success with the trilogy La Famiglia Passaguai than with the more ‘do gooder’ films, expresses a nimbleness and a maturity which compare well with the other episodes in Questa è la vita, four Pirandellian short stories, directed by Soldati (with Bassani to help), Zampa (with Brancati – and of course Totò) and Giorgio Pàstina. The revolt of the fearful petty bourgeois, triggered by the irritation of a tight tailcoat he has to wear to be best man at a wedding, is similar to that of Pensaci, Giacomino but drier. It attacks the rules and conventions which have also worn down his life. Fabrizi transforms the story in one act: a crescendo, an explosion and then the final victory of good sense, even love, over opportunism and middle-class selfishness. If compared with the ‘do gooder’ character he plays in Zavattini and Blasetti’s Prima comunione, Marsina stretta comes out on top.

                                                                                                                                                              Goffredo Fofi