Young Claude, teacher by day, is a struggling composer by night. Alas, everyone around him seems to prefer noise to music. Read More »
Tag Archives: Gina Lollobrigida
Come September (1961) Robert Mulligan, Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee, Comedy, Romance
Wealthy industrialist Robert Talbot arrives early for his annual vacation at his luxurious Italian villa to find three problems lying in wait for him. Read More »
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968) Melvin Frank, Gina Lollobrigida, Shelley Winters, Phil Silvers, Comedy, Romance, War
Twenty years after their initial war-time visit three U.S. servicemen hold a reunion at an Italian village. Read More »
La romana / Woman of Rome (1954) Luigi Zampa, Gina Lollobrigida, Daniel Gélin, Franco Fabrizi, Drama
During the fascist era, Adriana a beautiful young model, becomes a prostitute after a love affair gone wrong. She meets Mino, a partisan who falls in love with her and wants to redeem her.
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Il maestro di Don Giovanni / Crossed Swords (1954) Milton Krims, Vittorio Vassarotti, Errol Flynn, Gina Lollobrigida, Nadia Gray, Adventure
Nobleman Rainiero, Sidonia’s duke son, comes back home with his friend Renzo. Soon after arrival, Renzo will get in a big trouble and he will be forced to choose between going to church for marriage or going to prison. Read More »
Achtung! Banditi! / Attention! Bandits! (1951) Carlo Lizzani, Gina Lollobrigida, Andrea Checchi, Vittorio Duse, Drama, War
During the winter of 1944, the partisans stationed in the Ligurian Apennines must go to a factory in Genoa, in order to pick up a delivery of weapons. Meanwhile, there’s a strike in the city and the Nazis are trying to suppress it violently. The factory becomes the scene of fighting between the Germans and the partisans but the latter, aided by the workers, will be able to get the better.
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Pagliacci (1948) Mario Costa, Tito Gobbi, Gina Lollobrigida, Onelia Fineschi, Drama, Musical
The fiery performance, conducted by Giuseppe Morelli with the Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, knocks all recent digital efforts into a cocked hat. A few cinematic liberties seem permissible to me and this is surely one of the best films of an opera.
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Strange Bedfellows (1965) Melvin Frank, Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Gig Young, Comedy
In London, stuffy statesman Carter Harrison meets Toni, a Bohemian artist with a hot Italian temper. The two impulsively marry and then find that they disagree on everything. Shortly afterward they separate. We then meet them five years later on the eve before their divorce becomes final.
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Beat the Devil (1953) John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Action, Adventure, Comedy
A quartet of international crooks – Peterson, O’Hara, Ross and Ravello – is stranded in Italy while their steamer is being repaired. With them are the Dannreuthers. The six are headed for Africa, presumably to sell vacuum cleaners but actually to buy land supposedly loaded with uranium. They are joined by others who apparently have similar designs.
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La città si difende / Four Ways Out (1951) Pietro Germi, Gina Lollobrigida, Renato Baldini, Cosetta Greco, Crime, Drama
As a soccer match is in progress, a group of four criminals robs the stadium office. Before they can make their getaway, a chase begins, and they must split up before they can divide the money. The police have little to go on, since it appears that none of the robbers were experienced criminals. Meanwhile, the thieves have to arrange for dividing the money while trying to avoid being captured.
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The Lonely Woman / No encontré rosas para mi madre (1973) Francisco Rovira Beleta, Gina Lollobrigida, Danielle Darrieux, Concha Velasco, Drama
A young male model-cum-hustler juggling “relationships” with three women while looking for the big score, a rich girl who will keep him afloat for life. But no relationship is developed, no background examined, no motivation explained. He just bounces from woman to woman like a pinball and ends up marrying an emotionally stunted girl who plays with dolls.
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Pane, amore e gelosia / Frisky (1954) Luigi Comencini, Vittorio De Sica, Gina Lollobrigida, Marisa Merlini, Comedy, Romance
In a small Italian village, Maria De Ritis is engaged to army Lieutenant Pietro Stelluti. Stelluti’s superior officer, Marshal Antonio Carotenuto, is contemplating marriage to Annarella Mirziano, but he will be forced to resign if he marries Annarella, since she has an illegitimate child and that is against regulations for army officers. When Stelluti leaves town for a few weeks, the town-gossips create an affair out of the innocent relationship between Maria and Antonio. Stelluti returns and accuses Maria of infidelity, and, she, in reprisal, runs off and joins a traveling theatrical troupe as a dancer. Antonio, after convincing Annarella that he has not betrayed her love, encounters more trouble when the father of Annarella’s child shows up and asks that she and the child go away with him. Antonio tells Annarella that it is her decision to make, and she chooses the child’s father and leaves with him.
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La legge / The Law (1959) Jules Dassin, Gina Lollobrigida, Pierre Brasseur, Marcello Mastroianni, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Marietta, servant of aristocrat Don Cesare, is the bellezza of an Italian town where men gather nightly in the tavern for the ‘game of the Law,’ selecting one by lot to boss and humiliate the others. Illicit passions abound: the judge’s wife pursues Francesco, son of crime boss Matteo, who is after Marietta (so is her brother-in-law); Marietta wants engineer Enrico for a husband, but he claims he’s too poor to marry. So she decides to steal herself a dowry!
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Un bellissimo novembre / That Splendid November (1969) Mauro Bolognini, Gina Lollobrigida, Gabriele Ferzetti, André Lawrence
The erotic exploits of a large Sicilian family in which the father lectures about morality and self-control, but pursues lovemaking with reckless abandon.
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Campane a martello (1949) Luigi Zampa, Gina Lollobrigida, Yvonne Sanson, Carlo Romano
Agostina is a maid turned prostitute during World War II. She sends all the money she makes to the local priest in her home village for safekeeping. After the war is over Agostina and her friend Australia plan to open a clothing store so they return to her home island to collect the money from the priest. But after arriving there Agostina learns in shock that the priest has been dead for more than a year and that his eccentric successor mistook the received money for donations and spent all of it on building a new orphanage for war orphans. To make matters even worse, other islanders think that Agostina is now a millionaire and beg her to help them financially.
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