Tag Archives: Italy

L’ingorgo: Una storia impossibile / Traffic Jam (1979) Luigi Comencini, Alberto Sordi, Annie Girardot, Fernando Rey, Drama

L'ingorgo Una storia impossibile (1979)
A tremendous congestion hit the Roma highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen endures for more than 36 hours. People blocked in their cars react at the beginning normally. But the more the time advance the more we are witness of personal dramas, hysteric reactions and more. All the episodes are linked like one only plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a major universe: the congestion.
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Le Tigre se parfume à la dynamite / An Orchid for the Tiger (1965) Claude Chabrol, Roger Hanin, Margaret Lee, Michel Bouquet, Adventure, Crime, Comedy

Le tigre se parfume a la dynamite (1965)
Louis Rapiere aka Tiger is sent to Port-a-Pitre (French Guyane), to supervise the recuperation of a treasure from a sunken ship. A group of revolutionaries pirates the ship and robs the treasure, intending to sell it to an international terrorist organization, named Orchid. When he gets there, he demands that the French authority arrests the revolutionaries, but trying to prevent a general strike, the police does nothing. The Tiger finds himself acting alone, in a paralized territory – as the revoltionaries incited the people to the general strike anyway… and competing against American, Russian, and German spies. Everybody is very interested in the treasure, a rare mineral with tremendous impact on arms development, now about to fall into the Orchid’s clutch.
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Dopo divorzieremo (1940) Nunzio Malasomma

Dopo divorzieremo (1940)
Grace Peterson works in department stores “Tutto per Tutti”, along with many other young people. His employment contract entitling them to live in a boarding house built specifically for them by the company but on the other hand, forbid them not fall in love or marry under threat of dismissal. Still, Grace falls for Phil Golder, a violinist penniless. The director of the residence will notice and the best friend of the girl impersonate violinist girlfriend to try to save Grace dismissal.
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Un maledetto imbroglio / The Facts of Murder (1959) Pietro Germi, Claudia Cardinale, Franco Fabrizi, Crime, Drama

Un maledetto imbroglio (1959)
A masked bandit steals valuables from Commendatore Anzaloni’s apartment and flees, leaving Anzaloni unharmed. Inspector Ingravallo is called in. The robbery is suspicious; the thief found the jewellery too quickly. The neighbour, Liliana Banducci, employs a servant girl, Assuntina. Her fiancé, Diomede, tries to flee when he sees police tailing Assuntina. But Diomede has an alibi, a rich American woman… Liliana’s cousin, Dr. Valdarena, pays her a visit, only to find her body on the floor. But before calling police, Valdarena removes an envelope addressed to him from the sideboard… Liliana’s husband Remo was away from Rome at the time of the murder, but he is surprised to hear that Liliana had changed her will only the week before…
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La viaccia / The Lovemakers (1961) Mauro Bolognini, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale, Pietro Germi, Drama

La viaccia (1961)
The original Italian is La Viaccia (the name of the family farm which motivates the plot). The death of a wealthy patriarch in 1885 sets off an interfamily power struggle. Son Ferdinando buys out his other relatives in order to gain full control over the dead man’s property. But Ferdinando’s nephew Amerigo holds out. Amerigo’s stance is weakened when he heads for Florence and meets prostitute Bianca.
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La luna / Luna (1979) Bernardo Bertolucci, Jill Clayburgh, Matthew Barry, Veronica Lazar

La luna (1979)
Recently widowed American opera diva Caterina takes her teenaged son Joe with her on a long singing tour to Italy. Absorbed in her hectic work in various Verdi operas around Rome, Caterina is soon shocked to discover that her troubled and lonely son has become a heroin addict. Her desperate attempts to wean the youth off the drug result in an incestuous relationship, but also in a possibility to reunite Joe–maybe even herself–with his real father, whose existence she has kept a secret from him.
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Les tontons flingueurs / Monsieur Gangster (1963) Georges Lautner, Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Francis Blanche

Les tontons flingueurs (1963)
Ex-gangster Fernand (Lino Ventura) receives a call from a dying friend, a mob boss nicknamed “The Mexican”. The doomed mobster talks Fernand into taking care of some criminal business and looking after his soon-to-be-married daughter. When a longtime mobster heavy, Volfoni takes exception to Fernand for being an outsider, they come after Fernand who is equal to the task. He defends himself in a series of comical killings from the onslaught of the mob.
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