Armando Trovajoli Movies

In this comedy anthology, the sex-capades of several Italian couples are chronicled. In "The Scandal," a dull and insensitive husband is unaware that his lonely wife has been flirting with a young buck at a vacation resort. When the husband finally finds out, he gets jealous and the marriage is renewed. In "Sin in the Afternoon," a movie producer is frustrated because his wife refuses to touch him, and so he winds up picking up a comely woman off the street and taking her to a motel. "The Victim" chronicles the relationship between an insanely jealousy woman and her beleaguered husband, whom she drives away. She, seeking revenge, begins an affair with his best friend. In the final episode, "Modern People," a deeply indebted cheese maker is given the option of paying the debt in cash or allowing the debtor an evening of lovemaking with his gorgeous wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A less-stylish variant on Franju's classic Les Yeux Sans Visage, this low-budget Italian production borrows heavily from that film's plot to tell the tale of a scientist who employs a radical new procedure to restore the beauty of a young hoochie-koochie dancer disfigured in a car accident. All goes well after the bandages come off... but after all, this is a horror film, and it's only a matter of time before the young lass begins transforming into a monster -- which, despite the title, is not really a vampire, but more like something resembling an overcooked pizza roll with eyes. In order to return her to normal, the loony doc sets out to "borrow" the faces of other young women without their permission. Released in its native country (where the dubbing might have been a bit less painful) as Seddock, L'Ereda de Satana or Seddock, Heir of Satan. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this violent actioner, a misanthropic Ottawa police captain searches for the person who poisoned his little sister, who was attending the university in Montreal. So desperate is he for vengeance that he casts protocol to the winds and begins using his own brutal methods to find the killer. Soon he discovers that his "innocent" kid sister was involved in the theft of a valuable string of pearls and that she had been hanging around an appalling assortment of creeps and weirdos. The story was originally titled Blazing Magnum. The new title has nothing to do with the film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This 1991 Italian period drama is not to be confused with the 1990 Australian vampire film with the same English-language title, Wicked. The entire story, a genuine psychological detective tale, concerns the attempt by a young doctor (Julian Sands) working early in the 20th century in a Swiss clinic to uncover the root cause for the persistent mental breakdown of a young woman (Giuliana De Sio) who has recently suffered the death of her daughter. Despite the resistance of the clinic's administration to his use of Freudian methods, the doctor begins his analysis at the clinic but finds that he must travel to Italy to interview the woman's family and friends in order to get at the ultimate cause. A version of this film capably dubbed into English was released at the same time as its Italian-language version. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Marcello (Marcello Mastroiano) has worked hard all his life to achieve a certain standing and success as a lawyer in Rome. He is pleased to be able to offer the fruits of his success to his son Michele (Massimo Troisi), and is perplexed and distressed that his unambitious son has no interest in any of these things. Michele is serving a term in the Italian military in the port town of Civitavecchia, and Marcello is visiting him there. Here he meets Michele's salty girlfriend Loredana (Anne Parillaud). The father and son share some meals and explore their differences. Though at first it appears that these two men will not be able to tolerate one another, they eventually decide to live and let live. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Italian-French co-production weds the giallo thriller with pop hipness in a manner akin to Blow-Up, but comes across as a less-inspired variant on the same year's La Morte Ha Fatto l'Uovo. Like that film, Col Cuore in Gola stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Ewa Aulin in a loud, deranged thriller with hallucinatory visuals, irritating music, and plentiful visual references to kitsch culture. In this case, however, cult filmmaker Tinto Brass (Caligula) has only managed to be grating in telling the tale of a French actor named Bernard (Trintignant), who meets pretty Jane (Aulin) by the corpse of a murdered nightclub owner. Bernard knows Jane didn't commit the crime, and he starts to fall in love with her while running around London to the ear-piercing strains of Armando Trovajoli's score and through the wearingly garish production designs of Carmelo Patrono, who was influenced by the lurid comic-book art of Guido Crepax. Brass edits the film with a jackhammer, occasionally switching from color to black-and-white without apparent motive, and the whole thing looks more like a bad acid trip than the sort of Nouvelle Vague thriller for which he was obviously striving, wasting some fairly interesting cinematography by Silvano Tranquilli. Completists will want to look for an uncredited David Prowse as a hoodlum, and will no doubt be entranced by Ewa Aulin in yet another of the garish pop junk-heaps that comprised her career. She followed this one with the disappointing Candy and the demented Microscopic Liquid Subway to Oblivion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

The insidious emergence of state-sanctioned anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy sets the stage for this historical drama. In 1938, Umberto (Diego Abatantuono) is a tailor who is beginning to lose business to Leone (Sergio Castellito), a haberdasher whose shop is next door to Umberto's. Leone offers stock much like Umberto's and at lower prices, which has brought plenty of customers into his store, causing Umberto no small amount of annoyance. Umberto's ire is hardly soothed by the fact that his teenage son Paolo (Elio Germano) is dating Leone's daughter, Susanna (Gioia Spaziani), or that the two men's younger sons, Pietruccio (Walter Dragonetti) and Lele (Simone Ascani), are best friends. The rivalry between the two shopkeepers eventually leads to a heated public argument, in which Umberto refers to Leone's Jewish faith in a derogatory manner. A policeman overhears this, and Leone, who had previously been quiet about his Jewish heritage, soon finds himself having to deal with the sanctions being levied against Jewish citizens. As Umberto sees his neighbor slowly stripped of his property, his rights, and his dignity, his anger turns to sympathy and to a wish that he could do something to help a man not so different from himself. Concorrenza Sleale was directed by Ettore Scola, who previously examined Italy during Mussolini's rule in Una Giornata Speciale. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Down & Dirty was originally titled Brutti, sporchi e cativi in Italy. That translates literally to "dirty, nasty and bad", in reference to the lower-class characters and surroundings in this Ettore Scola film. Scola zeroes in on a particularly offensive Roman family. The stingy patriarch, Nino Manfredi, is personally wealthy but morally bankrupt, and his repulsive view of life trickles down to every member of his clan. Not content with corrupting his own flesh and blood, Manfredi spreads his philosophy throughout his village, where he functions as slumlord. By the time Manfredi's wife and sons begin plotting his murder, the audience is ready for a long, cold shower, with plenty of soap. A bleak film heavily laden with humor, Down & Dirty won Ettore Scola a Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic comedy concerns a young girl who is the product of a black American-Army regular and a Roman woman who shared a romance in World War II. The woman is pursued by two men who both covet a relationship with the dark-skinned girl. Scenes often take place amidst the Roman antiquities and ruins that have become famous the world over. Faustina (Vonetta McGee) falls for a shady trader who deals in pilfered antiques. She is also courted by her neighbor, who revels in the good things in life but seems to be allergic to any kind of manual labor. Faustina decides she must choose between the two men but soon leans towards the more carefree and comedic neighbor. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Hercules (Reg Park) and King Androcles (Ettore Manni) are on an ocean expedition when Androcles is washed overboard during a storm near a mysterious island. Making landfall, Hercules finds that the island is the kingdom of Atlantis, ruled by a beautiful, cruel, and ambitious queen, Antinea (Fay Spain), who controls a mysterious source of power. She has transformed her personal guard into super-strong warriors -- each nearly a match for Hercules, put Androcles under her spell, and inflicted terrible wounds on her people, all in preparation for her plan to conquer the world. Hercules finds that her power stems from a source older than the gods on Olympus, one over which he has virtually no power. He must save his friend, release Antinea's people, and prevent her from carrying out her plans. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide