Meglio vedova (1968)

The story seems to set the cultural stereotypes of the two great islands against each other—the larger one north of the English Channel and the larger one in the southern Mediterranean—while being enhanced by the dazzling, Norman-flavored beauty of the wonderful Virna Lisi. Tom Proby, a young English engineer representing an American company, is tasked with investigating whether an oil refinery can be built in a small Sicilian town. The local Mafia is divided into two factions: one, led by Baron Misceni, opposes the project by every means; the other, led by Don Calogero Minniti, supports it, resorting to every trick to convince the foreigner that the project is feasible. Minniti’s clan seems set to prevail when the Englishman meets the splendid and enchanting Rosa, Don Calogero’s daughter, and inevitably falls in love with her. Fortunately, she returns his feelings, though her father has already promised her to his rival. Baron Misceni, intent on revenge but also captivated by the beautiful young woman, then orders his “picciotti” to kidnap her so that she will be compromised and forced to marry him according to the “rules of honor” imposed by Sicilian culture. Rosa is freed, and although the Englishman from across the Channel insists on marrying her anyway, Don Calogero, believing that his daughter’s honor and his own are bound by the laws of the Mediterranean island, nevertheless forces Rosa to marry Misceni. The wedding is celebrated amid the two lovers’ despair. But Don Calogero proves able to reconcile the laws of love and his daughter’s happiness with the laws of Sicilian honor: as the couple leave the church, an anonymous lupara shot providentially kills the newly married husband, preventing the marriage from being consummated. The young widow, who is not inconsolable, can then marry her suitor, whose love she returns, in full respect of Sicilian customs.