7X1=0

Woman Times Seven is an ill-advised attempt to improve upon the mathematical formula of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. In that film, Sophia Loren played three women; in this one, Shirley MacLaine plays seven. Both movies employed the same director (Vittorio De Sica) and scenarist (Cesare Zavattini), inviting an unfortunate comparison. Shirley is no Sophia, although even Loren would have had trouble with these amateurish anecdotes.

Against the backdrop of Paris, MacLaine plays everything from a bitchy bourgeoise to a nudist nymph. In one sequence, she is Paulette, grieving as she leads her husband's funeral cortege to the cemetery. Comforting her is Peter Sellers, who tries to cut a path through the widow's weeds by promising her the world. At last Paulette succumbs. When the mourners reach a fork in the road, she and Sellers peel off to the left as the scandalized funeral procession proceeds to the right.

As Marie, MacLaine and her lover (Alan Arkin) scrawl "merde" on the walls of a flophouse hotel, dress up as bride and groom, and prepare to end their hopeless affair in a double suicide. She suggests pills, but Arkin refuses to play her end game. "I never took a pill in my life," he declares. "I always use suppositories." When she balks at death by suppository, he produces a pistol. She objects, they argue, and in tears she excuses herself to go to the w.c. Suddenly disillusioned with death--and with Marie--Arkin prepares to run for his life. As he peers out the window, he sees that Marie has had the same idea. In her bridal gown, she kicks up her heels and heads for home.

All seven stories suffer from the same fault: they start promisingly but run down, like jokes with weak punch lines. Part of the fault is MacLaine's. Despite heavy help from the makeup and wardrobe departments, she seldom departs from her customary screen self, and all seven women suffer from an unflatter ing family resemblance. Most of the blame, however, must fall on De Sica, who has wasted such talented actors as Arkin, Sellers, Michael Caine, Philippe Noiret and Vittorio Gassman in a ponderously directed, flaccid work. Better than anyone else, he should know that a tour de farce is like a striptease: there is no point in the performance if the material does not come off in style.

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