Italy

Quote:
The story is set in a manor farm on the slopes of Etna near Catania, at the beginning of November, during some days of vacation that are the occasion for a family of the Sicilian bourgeoisie to come together.
Nino is a restless teenager of seventeen, who harbors an unbridled love passion for Cettina, the sister of his mother. The woman, who is married and mature, partly reciprocates the attention of his nephew Nino, but at the same time is interested in an associate of her husband, Sasà, young and handsome. The husband seems to push her toward the partner for the sake of convenience.Read More »

A Sicilian couple struggles with the wife’s refusal to consummate the marriage and the husband’s repeated schemes for infidelity.Read More »

Quote:
The action takes place on the French Riviera. Joe Mark, known as The Red, arrives in flight from the USA. He is an old gangster who improvises as a detective to find out who stole a precious painting by Murillo from a castle belonging to his relatives – a copy, actually – and brings to light a hotbed of hypocrisy, dishonesty, cheating under the arrogant good manners of the aristocratic family.
Entrusted to the congeniality of the brilliant leading actor Falconi, it is a satirical comedy on the passion for foreign styles, American particularly, trendy at the time and opposed by the fascist regime, and in particular on gangsterism whose Italian-mafia component is sought to erase.
MorandiniRead More »

Quote:
A poor painter, never artistically recognized, meets on the riverside a wealthy young lady. They are both attracted to each other and she invites him to come over to her castle. There they begin an illegal affair (the woman is married to an old grand duke who is absent at that moment). Even when she warns him that their love will be as a big fire, that will be extinguished too quickly, the painter, blinded by passion, accepts. He paints a daring and somewhat manneristic portrait of the woman and sends it to town. At the moment when they read in the newspaper that due to the portrait the painter is finally recognized and praised, the duchess receives a message her husband is returning. Secretly she puts a sleeping powder in the painter’s wine. When he awakes, she is gone and has left him only the money for the painting, that she clearly has bought. Desperately he leaves the castle and wanders around, in search for his beloved. But when he finally encounters her, in company of her husband, she pretends not to know him.Read More »

Ezio Bosso reveals his real self and takes us into his world and his imagination, as if were a diary.Read More »

A police commissioner and a political activist join to investigate the suspicious death of a playboy Prince.Read More »

Peppino, a slow-witted local villager of the Italian resort town of Amalfi, is bribed to impersonate famed rock and roll star Adriano Celentano for autographs and personal appearances. While Celentano tries to romance Emanuela Mazzolani, the daughter of a well-to-do resident who dissaproves of the union between his daughter and the man he thinks of as a “punk”, Peppino, unaware of the true nature of his job to impersonate Celentano, tries to deal with his girlfriend’s newborn baby which gets switched around between him and Celentano.Read More »

The narrative purports to deal with the barbaric exploits of Attila The Hun (an appropriately brooding if unsympathetic figure throughout)…and, yet, none of the characters ever leave the remote seaside stretch of land on which the film is set or do much of anything – with the ensuing moralizing interrupted only by the occasional (and equally obscure) music-infused rites! …..
by Mario GauciRead More »

In 1981, RAI-TV presented six hour-long films based on stories by 19th century horror/fantasy authors from such directors as Giulio Questi (DJANGO, KILL!), Marcello Aliprandi (A WHISPER IN THE DARK) and Giovanna Gagliardo (STREET OF MIRRORS), starring actors that included Veronica Lario (TENEBRE), Saverio Vallone (ANTHROPOPHAGUS) and Stefano Madia (THE DEVIL’S HONEY). But it was the mini-series’ second episode that remains its most celebrated: The final work of legendary director Mario Bava – and the debut of his son Lamberto Bava as co-director – LA VENERE D’ILLE/THE VENUS OF ILLE stars Daria Nicolodi (DEEP RED) and Marc Porel (DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING) in an elegantly chilling tale of supernatural love. Five episodes have been sourced from broadcast masters, with Bava’s swansong restored from a 16MM print discovered in the RAI vault by film preservationists Simone Starace and the late Michele De Angelis.Read More »