Elsa Martinelli Movies

The murder of a millionaire has unexpectedly humorous results in this farcical comedy. When Phoebe (Sean Young) and Julian (Richard Lewis), two Americans on a tour of Europe, discover a lost dachshund, they learn that a $5,000 reward has been posted for the dog's return. Phoebe and Julian head to Monte Carlo to return the pet and claim the money, but they find that the dog's owner has been murdered -- and suddenly, they're suspects in the killing. As hapless detective Inspector Bonnard (Giancarlo Giannini) investigates the crime (imagining that the maid and butler must somehow be involved), he grills several other American tourists he believes are likely suspects, including gambling addict Augie Morosco (John Candy) and loud-mouthed suburbanites Neil and Marilyn Schwary (James Belushi and Cybil Shepherd). George Hamilton appears as an unusually opportunistic gigolo; former SCTV star Eugene Levy directed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Elsa Martinelli plays the title outlaw in the made-for-Italian-TV Belle Starr. Though ostensibly based on historical fact, the film's chronology and character relationships are somewhat juggled with by director Lina Wertmuller. What emerges is a typically Wertmullerian "battle of the sexes" endeavor, with anachronistic emphasis on the story's political ramifications. Also, the American West is depicted in near-surrealistic fashion, not quite as zany as in a Mel Brooks picture, but not very far from it. For reasons of her own, Wertmuller used the psedonym Nathan Wich in the film's credits. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this French caper film, Charles Aznavour stars as Eric, an architect-turned-writer who has grown increasingly dissatisfied with his life -- so much so that he turns down an award he has won (and then regrets it). His childhood friend Maurice (Robert Hossein) is a professional safecracker and invites Eric to join him in their next robbery as the planner, or "brains." The first robbery is cancelled, but their second, a bank robbery, takes place as planned. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Reliable American character actor Robert Webber is afforded a rare leading role in the Italian Every Man is My Enemy. Webber plays a Mafia "torpedo" with an agenda all his own. While in Marseilles, he plots to pull off a big diamond robbery. Now he must not only avoid being nabbed by the authorities, but also dodge the bullets and knives of his fellow mobsters. Elsa Martinelli and Jean Servais co-star. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A mid-1960s TV documentary special (and a New Yorker cartoon before that) was the inspiration for If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. The film is a likeable satire of "packaged" European tours, where the nonplused tourists are expected to rush from one landmark to another in a breathless 18 days. Ian McShane stars as the amorous tour guide, with Suzanne Pleshette as the American department store buyer he falls for; their romance ends when Pleshette decides that the supposedly worldly McShane is too immature for her. An all-star cast, including Murray Hamilton, Peggy Cass, Pamela Britton, Marty Ingels, John Cassavetes and Vittorio De Sica, pops up in comic cameo roles. Our favorite bit: an American and German tourist, simultaneously regaling their respective wives with wildly divergent accounts of the same wartime confrontation. If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium was reworked in 1987 as a made-for-TV movie, cleverly title If It's Tuesday, It Still Must be Belgium. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed in English, this Italian mystery thriller/melodrama explores the murder of a doctor's wife. The doctor himself (Jean Morel) has long since taken up with a mistress. His wife begged out of engagements as an asthmatic, all the while actually entertaining herself with her part-time job as a stripper. Did the doctor kill her? After all, he took out a large life-insurance policy on his wife. One highlight of this film is the effective use of its San Francisco setting. Another is its gas-chamber sequence, filmed in San Quentin's actual gas chamber. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Jason Fister (Dustin Hoffman) is the Internal Revenue Service agent sent to Rome to investigate the hidden money of the late gangster Mike Madigan (Cesar Romero). Jason meets Vick Shaw ( Elsa Martinelli) and he mistakenly takes her to be the dead mobster's mistress when in fact she is his daughter. Soon underworld thugs converge on the couple in an attempt to steal the stolen loot. This film was completed in 1967 and was subsequently shelved. It was released in the wake of Hoffman's popularity from his roles in The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy. This inept and contrived comedy is Hoffman's first feature film. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Vittorio De Sica directs the 1967 episodic sex comedy Sette Volte Donna (Woman Times Seven), consisting of seven short stories each starring Shirley MacLaine. In "Funeral Possession," she plays opposite Peter Sellers as a widow at her husband's funeral. In "Amateur Night," she's a wife who's driven to prostitiution to get revenge on her adulterous husband (Rossano Brazzi). In "Two Against One," she plays an interpreter who gets naked and reads T.S. Eliot to an Italian (Vittorio Gassman) and a Scot (Clinton Greyn). In "The Super Simone," she's a houswife who acts insane to get the attention of her author husband (Lex Barker). In "At the Opera," she's a rich woman determined to get a specific dress. In "The Suicides," she forges a suicide pact with lover Alan Arkin. In "Snow," Michael Caine is hired to spy on her. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

In this anthology, six French filmmakers each contributed a vignette, offering their take on the history of prostitution. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Co-directed by French filmmakers Noël Howard and Denys de La Patellière, La Fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo is a star-studded, epic retelling of the story of the famed thirteenth-century Venitian explorer. Filmed on location in France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Egypt and Afghanistan, the film stars Horst Bucholz as Polo, the ambitious young voyager who, along with his faithful servant Akerman (Orson Welles), ventures to China, where he joins Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan (Anthony Quinn) in his fight against rebelling forces. Also starring Omar Sharif, La Fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo was released in the United States and Great Britain under the title Marco the Magnificent. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Bond-style gadgetry is used in this situation comedy about the amateur thief Bernard (Claude Rich) who meets his match in the felonious female pro Bettina (Jean Seberg), and the amateur teaches the seasoned veteran crooks a new angle. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Terrence Rattigan, the playwright who brought us the multicharactered, multistoried Separate Tables, again offers us an episodic cross-section of humanity in The V.I.P.'s. When a heavy London fog paralyzes all air traffic, the lives of several people are profoundly affected. As indicated by the title, most of the characters in this portmanteau film are of the social and/or financial elite. Elizabeth Taylor wishes to leave her enormously wealthy husband Richard Burton in favor of playboy Louis Jourdan. Peripatetic European film producer Orson Welles is hoping to escape London with his newest protegee Elsa Martinelli in order to avoid paying his income tax. Australian businessman Rod Taylor, accompanied by his devoted (and adoring) secretary Maggie Smith, is anxious to head to New York to stave off a hostile takeover of his firm. And impoverished aristocrat Margaret Rutherford (who won an Oscar for her performance) would rather not go to Florida to accept a job as a social arbiter, but the wolf must be kept from the door. Before the fog disperses, you can be sure that at least one of the many plotlines will intersect with another. David Frost, in a tiny part as a reporter, was fond of recalling in later years that, while the major stars of The VIPS were introduced in the opening titles with animated limousines, he was consigned a tiny Volkswagen; alas, no such cartoon joke appears in the film, though on occasion the actors-particularly Mr. Welles-behave as though they were cartoons. Mercilessly skewered by the critics, The VIPS was a winner at the box-office, due in great part to the Cleopatra-inspired publicity concerning the top-billed Liz Taylor and Dick Burton. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi