Italy

  • Antonio Pietrangeli – La visita AKA The Visitor [+Extras] (1964)

    1961-1970Antonio PietrangeliComedyDramaItaly

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    Synopsis by Sandra Brennan
    In this drama, a single woman approaching 40 grows bored of her affair with a married trucker and writes to a singles column. She ends up paired with an outwardly conservative bookstore clerk. During their date, he drinks and soon turns into a rude, crude, drunken slob. She is mortified until he apologizes. She forgives him and they have sex. In the morning they resume their former lives. Perhaps they will meet again. Perhaps not.Read More »

  • Tinto Brass – Action (1980)

    1971-1980DramaEroticaItalyTinto Brass


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    Description: Bruno is an idealistic hero who questions the meaning of life in this confusing and sometimes hallucinatory erotic drama. After a night in jail, he is gang-raped by punk rockers in a garbage dump. He later saves an old man who believes he is Garibaldi and a woman he believes is Ophelia. Bruno watches helplessly as she later jumps from a window.
    Read More »

  • Luigi Scattini – Il corpo (1974)

    1971-1980EroticaGialloItalyLuigi Scattini

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    Plot :

    Director Luigi Scattini had previously worked with the beautiful model-turned-actress Zeudi Araya in “The Sinner” (1972) and in a previous film that I have not had the pleasure of viewing. Even though she was constantly typecast as the beautiful barefoot island girl, it was always obvious that Araya was having a good time. Casting “Il Corpo” with such tried-and true talents as Leonard Mann, Enrico Maria Salerno, Carroll Baker and Ms. Araya, it is equally obvious that Scattini had a good time, and the result is a dramatic, slightly erotic thriller that begs to be seen. The story is simple and familiar: Mann comes to work for Salerno and his common-law wife Araya, and with Salerno going away from time to time, Mann and Araya fall for each other, and the classic love triangle develops. From here, though, Scattini takes his characters in not-so-obvious directions and leads them them all down the path toward self-destruction.Read More »

  • Roberto Rossellini – La vispa Teresa (1939)

    1931-1940ArthouseFantasyItalian Cinema under FascismItalyRoberto Rossellini

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    Quote:
    Scalera had obtained backing for a series of animal shorts and needed someone to make them. Roberto plunged in enthusiastically. He arrived at Ladispoli with animals of all sorts distributed among pockets and cages and started sixteen documentaries, no less, all at once. A slew of titles were annouced. La foresta silenziosa (“The quiet forest”), Primavera (“Spring”), Re Travicello, and La merca; and perhaps ll brutto idraulico (“The ugly plumber”). Fellini recalls finding Roberto at Scalera kneeling under small reflectors. “Inside a small enclosure made of nets and rope were a turtle, two mice, and three or four roaches. He was shooting a documentary about insects [La vispa Teresa?], doing one frame a day, very complex and laborious, with great patience.”
    “He kept shooting for months,” Fellini adds, probably with his customary exaggeration. For in fact Roberto’s enthusiasm flagged quickly.Read More »

  • Francesco de Robertis & Roberto Rossellini – La Nave Bianca aka The White Ship (1941)

    1941-1950DramaFrancesco de Robertis and Roberto RosselliniItalyRoberto RosselliniWar

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    Quote:
    La Nave Bianca is a movie about a group of firemen on a Italian battleship, that takes part in a sea battle. During the battle one of the heaters is wounded and brought to the hospital ship, where he meets a nurse…
    The film is intercut with documentary scenes from the movie La battaglia dello Jonio and the cast is completely non-professional. There has been an argument ever since about who directed the movie (Rossellini or de Robertis). A dissertation from 2002 (here on the tracker torrent) seems to decide this question finally in favour of Francesco de Robertis, who is most likely the writer of the script, main director and supervisor, whereas Rossellini merely took part in the production as learning assistant director. Read More »

  • Alessandro Blasetti – Resurrectio (1931)

    1931-1940Alessandro BlasettiClassicsComedyItalian Cinema under FascismItaly

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    PLOT SYNOPSIS:
    Desperate because abandoned by his lover (V. Alexandrescu), orchestra conductor hesitates: to kill himself, or kill her? He simply shoots the portrait of the lover and returns to conducting, helped in his “resurrection”, by a cute girl (L. Franca), who restores his will to live.
    Second film by Blasetti, after the silent “Sun” (1929), and the only one for which he signs the script himself. Produced by Cines, it is the first Italian sound film but, deemed not commercial enough, was released after La canzone dell’amore (1930) by Righelli.
    It is interesting at stylistic level, for the ambitious mixage of dialogs, music (Amedeo Escobar) and noises in parallel with experimental visual inventions.Read More »

  • Vittorio De Sica – Maddalena, zero in condotta AKA Maddalena, Zero for Conduct (1940)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyItalian Cinema under FascismItalyVittorio De Sica

    Miss Elisa teaches commercial correspondence in a girls’ school, where, customarily, all the letters are sent to a certain Mr. Hartmann of Vienna, who actually does not exist, at an address just as non-existent. But Elisa is a true romantic, and she entrusts her dreams to the letters she writes to the phantasmal Hartman. And one of them is found by Maddalena Lenci, whose girlfriend, thinking to do well, mails it. But Carlo Hartman, who really exists at this address and so receives the letter, leaves for Rome to meet this Elisa…
    But in Rome there is also his cousin, who falls for Maddalena mistaking her for Elisa…Read More »

  • Alessandro Blasetti – 4 passi fra le nuvole AKA Four Steps in the Clouds (1942)

    1941-1950Alessandro BlasettiClassicsDramaItalian Cinema under FascismItaly

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    Quote:
    Originally released in 1942, Four Steps in the Clouds (Quattro Passi fra le Nuvole) was a major stepping stone in the starring career of Gino Cervi. The story begins as young unwed mother-to-be Maria (Adriana Benetti) desperately casts about for a means of avoiding disgrace. Making the acquaintance of good-natured Paolo Bianchi (Cervi), Maria persuades him to pose as her husband and meet her family.

    Immediately ingratiating himself with Maria’s parents, Paolo plays his part so well that only a completely unforeseen disaster could spoil the charade. And when that disaster inevitably arrives, it is Paolo who comes to the rescue… Four Steps in the Clouds was superbly remade by Alfonso Arau in 1995 as A Walk in the Clouds, with Keanu Reeves in the Gino Cervi role Read More »

  • Vittorio De Sica – Sciuscià AKA Shoeshine (1946)

    1941-1950ClassicsDramaItalian Neo-RealismItalyVittorio De Sica

    At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride… The boys meet Attilio, Giuse’s much older brother, and his shady friend at a boat on the Tiber. In return for a commission, the boys agree to deliver black market goods to a fortune-teller. Once the woman has paid, Attilio’s gang suddenly arrives. Pretending to be cops, they shake the woman down. With a payoff from Attilio, the boys are able to make the final payment and stable their horse in Trastevere over the river… The fortune-teller identifies Pasqua and Giuse. Held at an overcrowded boys’ prison, they are separated. Giuse falls under the influence of an older lad in his cell, Arcangeli. During interrogation, Pasqua is tricked into betraying Giuse’s brother to the police. With their trial still in the future, the two friends are driven further apart… Read More »

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