Poldo Bendandi Movies
Dale Wasserman's long-running Broadway smash comes to the screen in this musical based on Miguel de Cervantes' classic satire Don Quixote de la Mancha. Cervantes (Peter O'Toole) is arrested and put in prison by the soldiers of the Spanish Inquisition after staging a comic performance which mocked the Spanish government. Cervantes' fellow inmates are eager to divvy up his belongings, but the author is desperate to save a manuscript of his latest work; in order to win the prisoners over, he stages, with their assistance, his latest comedy about the delusional knight Don Quixote (O'Toole). Don Quixote, with the help of his loyal manservant Sancho Panza (James Coco), is determined to battle evil, though he most often finds himself combating windmills. Don Quixote encounters the beautiful virgin Dulcinea -- personified by a jailed prostitute, Aldonza (Sophia Loren) -- and is certain he has found the love of his life. However, tragedy befalls Don Quixote when a band of savages rape Dulcinea as he sleeps, and he must decide where his greatest loyalty lies when his niece Antonia (Julie Gregg) arrives, asking Quixote to please return home to his family. In a move which was widely criticized at the time of the film's release, Peter O'Toole's singing voice was dubbed for most of his musical numbers, while Sophia Loren did all of her own vocal tracks. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, (more)
Originally titled Giù la Testa, Duck, You Sucker! is a Mexican-revolution yarn, filmed in Italy by spaghetti Western maven Sergio Leone. James Coburn is top-billed as John H. Mallory, an Irish soldier of fortune with a penchant for explosives. Rod Steiger plays Juan Miranda, another mercenary who wants to utilize Mallory's specialty to blast into a bank. Despite his avaricious intentions, Miranda becomes a hero when the hole he blows in the bank wall frees dozens of political prisoners. Duck, You Sucker originally ran 150 minutes, with U.S. release prints heavily trimmed. Taking into consideration the previous "Man With No Name" films masterminded by Leone, the distributors of Duck, You Sucker! reissued the film as A Fistful of Dynamite. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rod Steiger, James Coburn, (more)
Two of the most beautiful women in the European cinema of the 1960s -- Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau -- team up under the direction of Louis Malle in this engaging comedy/adventure. Maria Fitzgerald O'Malley (Bardot) is the daughter of an Irish political dissident who has traveled to Latin America with her father to take part in an anarchist political uprising. When her father is killed, Maria, left to her own devices, happens upon a traveling circus, where she strikes up a friendship with one of the performers, also named Maria (Moreau). Maria O'Malley joins up with the carnival, and she works up a dance routine with Maria; the act is a smash hit, especially after the Irish Maria accidentally loses part of her costume during a performance. Despite their success, the two Marias find themselves increasingly distressed with the poverty and brutality of the peasants' lives, and they soon decide to use their talents in support of revolutionary leader Flores (George Hamilton). Viva Maria!'s original ending was trimmed slightly for its American release, but the complete version was later released in the United States on DVD. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
- 1964
Cult Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci's second "Franco & Ciccio" comedy of 1965, this science fiction-themed farce casts popular comedians Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as a pair of bumbling Russian cosmonauts aboard the spaceship Popov. Their ship loses contact with base, and Soviet space program officials are loathe to face the international humiliation of losing two astronauts, so they send up a second spaceship, a twin of the first. Locating a pair of Italian thieves (also played by Franchi and Ingrassia) who are dead ringers for the lost cosmonauts, the Russians kidnap them and send them up in the duplicate rocketship. Upon their return, the thieves are welcomed as the real thing by their wives and families, but that's when the confusion begins, as the original spaceship returns with the real cosmonauts, setting up a number of farcical situations. Monica Randal and Linda Sini co-star with Enzo Andronico, Maria Silva, and Lino Banfi (credited here as "Pasquale Zagaria," perhaps to fulfill contractual obligations in the Italian-Spanish co-production). The boys returned under Fulci's direction a month later in I Due Parà. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
