Isolina Maffei (Monica Vitti) is a complexed, introverted, fearful young woman. Her aversion to men is due to the only encounter she has had with a representative of the opposite sex: having fled the convent to follow a man, she finds herself after a few months of married life, alone and without money. One of the many murders, the usual prostitute found murdered, brings Isolina to the headlines. She swears she saw Marino Bottecchia (Ugo Tognazzi), the victim’s pimp, at the scene of the crime. The pimp is sentenced to twenty years in prison. After a few months, Isolina realises she has confused one day with another in her ‘super-witness statement’: Marino Bottecchia is therefore innocent. During the appeal trial, the defendant is acquitted of murder, but sentenced to three years for pimping. Isolina’s conscience is still not clear; she wants to help the man redeem himself: they meet more and more often in the prison, and eventually the two decide to marry. Having paid his debt to society, Marino vows to start a new life with his companion. But after trying in a thousand ways to make an acceptable introduction, and failing, how can he desist from the temptation to convince Isolina to do the ‘trade’?
La supertestimone is a perfect and curious mix of courtroom drama with a denunciation of terrible prison life, sour comedy like a Ferreri film from the 1960s, with unpredictable outcomes. A competition of bravura between a Monica Vitti, tortured from the start by doubts and suspicions, and a cynical and ambiguous Ugo Tognazzi, never over the top.
Source
Genre: comedy drama
Cast
Monica Vitti: Isolina Pantò
Ugo Tognazzi: Marino Bottecchia
Orazio Orlando: head warden
Véronique Vendell: sister of Isolina
Filippo De Gara: inspector
Soundtrack Luis Bacalov
