Tag Archives: italian

Giallo a Venezia / Giallo in Venice (1979) Mario Landi, Leonora Fani, Jeff Blynn, Gianni Dei, Crime, Horror, Mystery, Erotic

giallo-a-venezia-aka-giallo-in-venice-1979
Inspector Angelo De Pol (Jeff Blynn) is assigned to the case of a double murder in Venice, the victims were a married couple. He suspects that a psycho killer in on the loose, however during the investigation the inspector discovers that the husband was a sex maniac and a drug addict. Soon afterwards bloody killings begin to occur.
Read More »

Teresa Venerdì (1941) Vittorio De Sica, Adriana Benetti, Irasema Dilián, Comedy, Drama, Romance

teresa-venerdi-1941
A comedy of errors in which the sweetly incompetent Dr. Pietro Vignali (de Sica) has been run deep into debt by his girlfriend, Loletta Prima (Magnani). After his creditors threaten to sell his belongings, he takes a job as an orphanage health inspector to pay his debts and ends up engaged to wealthy Lilli, daughter of a mattress tycoon, and chased after by the orphan Teresa Venerdí, while trying to keep his life in order.
Read More »

Madame Sans Gêne / Madame (1961) Christian-Jaque, Sophia Loren, Robert Hossein, Renaud Mary, Comedy, Drama, Romance, War

madame-1961
Catherine, an out-spoken Parisian laundress follows Napoleon’s army to the battlefront to be near her Sergeant Lefevre. The couple perform a deed of heroism which abets Napoleon’s victory, so that after the war the grateful Emperor bestows on the now married couple the title of Duke and Duchess. Catherine squabbles with Napoleon’s haughty sisters, scandalizes the nobility with her lack of courtly manners, flirts with the men – and consistently creates havoc as she remains true to her earthy background.
Read More »

Il merlo maschio / Secret Fantasy (1971) Pasquale Festa Campanile, Lando Buzzanca, Laura Antonelli, Ferruccio De Ceresa, Comedy, Erotic

il-merlo-maschio-aka-secret-fantasy-1971
Niccolò Vivaldi is a cello player and he plays in Arena di Verona Orchestra. But he is not the first and neither the second cello. He is frustrated. Nobody can remember his face, nor his name. Niccolò is married to Costanza, who is really beautiful and he takes some pictures of her naked. Later he shows the pictures to a friend and so he feels better. He starts to write a comic opera called “Il merlo maschio” only to discover later he had written Rossini’s “La gazza ladra”. To maintain his self-esteem he can only show his wife…
Read More »

La persona de Leo N. / The Person de Leo N. (2005) Alberto Vendemmiati, Documentary

la-persona-de-leo-n-aka-the-person-de-leo-n-2005
As a twelve-year-old boy, Nicola de Leo already knew she wanted to become a woman. Today, the now forty-year-old transsexual lives in Venice and has changed her name to Nicole. She has undergone a hormone treatment and grown breasts, but she still lives inside the body of a middle-aged man, including a penis, a beard and a substantial Adam’s apple. This is why Nicole is applying for a sex change through official channels. ‘I never thought it would be so hard. I thought making the decision was enough,’ she says. During five tense years, Nicole fights her emotional and physical struggle in the presence of director Alberto Vendemmiati’s camera. Working as an actress, a seller of carnival masks and a prostitute, she finances her cosmetic treatments and looks forward to the subsidised sex change operation. Meanwhile, she turns to her elderly mother for support, who has a hard time accepting that her son will soon be a daughter.
Read More »

Nenè (1978) Salvatore Samperi, Leonora Fani, Tino Schirinzi, Paola Senatore, Drama

nene-1978
It’s the late 1940s in Italy. WWII is over, but society the world over still bears its scars. In a remote countryside, one family of four occupies a big villa: a young boy, his older sister and their parents. Ju (Sven Valsecchi) is a cute and innocent boy – curious like most kids his age about such things as love, kisses, women’s breasts and generally the difference between sexes. When his cousin, a 14-year-old orphaned girl, moves in with the family, Ju discovers an opportunity to satisfy his increasing curiosity about the female sex. But it all comes at a price…
Read More »

L’innocente / The Innocent (1976) Luchino Visconti, Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Drama, Romance

linnocente-aka-the-innocent-1976
Luchino Visconti’s last film based on a novella by Gabrielle d’Annunzio is a haunting account of aristocratic chauvinism and sexual double standards in turn of the century Italy. Giannini as the psichotic husband whose lust cannot be satisfied. Antonelli as his sensitive and tormented wife and O’Neil as cunning possesive mistress.
Read More »

Gruppo di famiglia in un interno / Conversation Piece (1974) Luchino Visconti, Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Silvana Mangano, Drama, Romance

Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (1974)
Retired professor of American origin lives solitary life in luxurious palazzo in Rome He is confronted by vulgar Italian marchesa and her companions: her lover, her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend and forced to rent to them an apartment on upper floor of his palazzo. From this point his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants’ machinations, and everybody’s life is taking unexpected but inevitable turn.
Read More »

Accattone (1961) Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini, Drama

accattone-1961
In a seedy section of Rome, Vittorio Cataldi – “Accattone” (“beggar” in Italian) to those that know him – lives off the avails of prostitution, Maddalena being his one and only girl. He is married to Ascenza with who he has one young son named Iaio, but he does not live with them – they who live with her father and brother – provide for them, or play any important part of their lives. He generally hangs out with his similarly slack life friends playing cards and drinking. His source of income is threatened when Maddalena is injured being hit by a motorcyclist, then beaten by rivals of his, which leads to her being arrested and jailed for a year. Largely because of Iaio, Accattone contemplates going straight and getting a real job. Then he meets Stella, a young innocent woman who has had a hard life, but who is not as naive to the ways of the world as she first appears. Accattone falls in love with her, but as the thought of working a steady job now becomes abhorrent, contemplates …
Read More »