I was severely disappointed upon finding out that this movie wasn't an anthology film themed around witches, but instead the segments don't have a clear connecting point other than the fact that each of them stars Silvana Mangano.The animated intro is my favorite part of the movie. It's creative, somewhat humorous and has a fantastic score playing in the background. However, it's completely misleading (same as the title), as it foreshadows a plot centered about witches.The first story (The Witch Burned Alive, dir. Visconti) is weak, boring and way too long. It's the longest segment and takes up a third of the movie's runtime. The story isn't all that interesting either.The second one (Civic Sense, dir. Bolognini) is easily the worst of all. It's a pointless story about a woman offering to take an injured man to the hospital. The punchline isn't really clever, the direction bland, and the story is surprisingly dull for lasting only four minutes.The third segment (The Earth as Seen from the Moon, dir. Pasolini) is the second worst. I'll give it credit for Totò's fun performance, but sadly everyone else is annoying in their role. The musical track that keeps playing gets aggravating quickly and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. The message of the story is clear only to Pasolini, and probably not even to him.The fourth story (The Girl From Sicily, dir. Rossi) has some potential, but lasts only four minutes and is over before it starts. It isn't given much time, which is shame because the plot is better than the first three story lines.The final story (An Evening Like The Others, dir. De Sica) is by far the best. Because of the plot and style, it's somewhat similar to Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits. Both Mangano and Eastwood are fun to watch and there are some clever shots and sequences, mostly the ones set in the wife's dream world. In the scene where she criticizes the comic books her son reads, you can see an issue of the comic book "Kriminal", about which I agree with her because that comic is horrible.All in all, there's no reason why this movie's premise shouldn't have been set around the actual witches.

*** out of ****This is basically a collection of five short films all about women and the roles that people feel that they play in society. It gives us different interpretations of women and how people feel around them. The first story is about a famous actress who hides away from the public at a ski resort, before discovering that she's pregnant. But when she calls her husband, he is not at all supportive of her desire to have children. It starts out slow, but it becomes pretty haunting to watch after a while.The second story gives us a woman who has an injured man in her car who is supposed to drive him to the hospital, but instead drives by several of them before going to where she wants to go. The man doesn't appear to be hurt too badly. Perhaps this is supposed to be a comment on how a woman supports a man in times of need? The third story is an indescribably weird and chaotic satire of a father and son who look for a woman to be the father's wife and his son's mother. They come upon a woman who is deaf and are able to get something going with her before the story gets even weirder. This film actually really made me feel weird and left my mind broken in a million directions, but i couldn't stop watching it no matter how much i tired.The forth is a story about a man who murders several people because of a woman. This one isn't really funny at all and is actually pretty depressing when you really get right down to it.The fifth story has Clint Eastwood in it as the uninteresting husband of a woman who escapes into an imaginary world where she gets sweet revenge on him for being so boring.My favorite story is the third, simply because it is so strange and unlike anything that it must be seen to be believed. Overall, i enjoyed it and found it to be very entertaining and interesting. It's creepy and weird if you aren't prepared. Check it out.contains adult content and some violence.

This portmanteau film, comprised of 5 short efforts by noted Italian directors, is decidedly unsuccessful. The best 2 are Luchino Visconti's "The Witch Burned Alive" and "An Evening Like The Others" by Vittorio De Sica, and those are far from excellent, but are quite effective. The whole thing is dated in quite a negative way, although some of the visuals and music is impressive, particularly that tune in the first segment that Mangano dances to. What perplexes is the general lack of film-making invention in any of them - any surrealism is mild and far from interesting. Pasolini's piece is pretty objectionable and bizarre, yet with seemingly no reason to it, with two frankly farcical characters indulging in dull, insubstantial activities. It's just irritating and has no reason to its stilted madness. The "Sicilian Belle" "piece" is just inconsequential, worse even than the fairly tenuous "Civic Spirit". What this odd but tedious collection of films do all display is an attempt at style-over-substance modish cinema. The whole thing seems very half-hearted really, with few directorial or writing touches evident. The de Sica piece however, has quite a good use of fantasy sequences, using the sensuous Silvana Mangano to the full. In its favour it can be said to have style - at least in the de Sica and Visconti pieces - and a rather effective array of hair stylings for Mangano, who appeals in all of the pieces. Mangano makes no impression in the middle 3 segments, perhaps as she's a mute "Absurdity" in Pasolini's, and is a mere catalyst in the other 2. She's good enough in the bookending pieces though, creating some character, unlike any other performers. Clint Eastwood is pretty anonymous really, but the last piece does flow well, with inventive, sometimes bizarre sequences of Silvana Mangano's fantasies. Overall, a disappointment, but with compensations. Beware the Pasolini segment...! Rating:- ** 1/2/*****

Surreal, absurdist (kind of), very Italian, very 60s. You should definitely see this movie if you like a) 60's clothes, b) 60's movie sets, c) weird movies, d) Silvana Mangano, and e) obscure Clint Eastwood titles (yes, he's in it, too), among other things.