Among the most savage and surreal of Italian comedies, starring one of the country's biggest stars and directed by one of its legendary filmmakers, Vittorio De Sica's Il Boom barely made a ripple when first released, in 1963. It sank so deeply that it's only now getting a proper release in the United States. Luckily for us, it has lost almost none of its bite.

The title refers to Italy's two-decade period of postwar economic expansion, as rapid modernization and industrialization created a huge new middle class and a generation of upwardly mobile movers and shakers. Giovanni Alberti (played by that great Everyman of Italian cinema, Alberto Sordi) is one of these ambitious spendthrifts, an amiable middle manager up to his eyeballs in debt and utterly incapable of changing his ways.