Originally titled Pane, Amore, e Fantasia when released in Italy, Bread, Love and Dreams contains what some regard as Gina Lollobrigida’s best and most naturalistic performance. The film’s popularity resulted in two sequels, both with Lollobrigida: Pane, Amore e Gelosia (US title: Frisky) and the open-ended Pane, Amore e… (released in the states as Scandal in Sorrento). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »
Giovanni is a young man who has been used by a catholic publishing house to advertise, with his face, a publication by installments concerning Jesus life. Francesca is a mysterious girl he met on the street and who’s being sought by the police.Read More »
Police commissioner Santamaria is investigating the murdering of the ambiguous architect Mr. Garrone. The investigations soon drive him into the Torino’s high society. Santamaria suspect Anna Carla and at the same time falls in love for her. Lello is the lover of Massimo, a homosexual platonic friend of Anna Carla. He is following another direction in order to find out the truth, and his results are confusing the Policeman. But another murdering happens…Read More »
Synopsis:
A tremendous congestion hits the Rome highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen lasts more than 36 hours. At the beginning the people blocked in their cars react normally. But as more time passes, the more we witness personal dramas, hysteric reactions and other grotesque situations. All the episodes are linked as if in a single plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a larger universe: the congestion.Read More »
The first episode with Paolo Villaggio was the centre of controversy over its tastelessness, resulting in director Loy removing his name from it. The star resides in Amsterdam with his wife, making very little money selling specialty Italian food; one day he crosses paths with a local bigwig who notices the generous size of his member and, soon, Villaggio starts bringing home lots of dough – appearing in mask and costume, billed as the “Italian Superman”, in live porn shows making love to nubile girls stretched out on a large plate of pasta!Read More »
In the movie La valigia dei sogni (The Suitcase of Dreams, Italy, 1953) directed by Luigi Comencini, some sequences from Cenere are inserted. The protagonist is a former silent film actor who has saved old movies of his time from destruction, and uses them to set up recreational performances at schools. After an accidental fire and the risk of prison, he meets a rich producer who helps him to build a film museum.Read More »
Omnibus film with individual segments directed by Renato Castellani, Luigi Comencini and Franco Rossi; all of them starring the radiant Catherine Spaak as “out of place” women, longing for love, in a Sicillian village, a monastery, and a modern Italian urban setting, respectively.Read More »
Synopsis:
In “The Scientific Cardplayer” (Lo scopone scientifico), Bette Davis played an eccentric millionaire, addicted to playing cards and winning from players who could not afford to gamble. Every year, she visits Rome with her secretary and ex-lover, George (Joseph Cotton), to play with Peppino (Alberto Sordi), the ragman, and Antonia (Silvana Mangano), a cleaning lady who lived in a slum near her villa with their five children.Read More »
At the beginning of the twentieth century the noble and chaste Eugenia (L. Antonelli) and the enriched plebeian Raimondo (O. Lionello), Sicilians, come to learn by telegram on their wedding night to have the same father, but for social propriety, and economic reasons, they decide to play the comedy in front of the world by living in chaste marriage. According to the current morality, he can afford some escapade but the virginal wife, while eager to penetrate the mysteries of the flesh, must restrain herself. It will be the readings of D’Annunzio to dismantle her resistance.Read More »