Antonio Casagrande Movies
- 2007
The Teatro La Fenice in Venice mounted this production of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's opera La Vedova scaltra, starring Maurizio Muraro, Anne-Lise Sollied and Emanuele d'Aguanno. The Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro La Fenice, under the baton of Karl Martin, provide symphonic accompaniment. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne-Lise Sollied, Maurizio Muraro, (more)
- 1974
This drama tells the story of a successful author who visits the French village where he was once imprisoned. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1974
In this ironic French tale of tragedy and love, Laurent (Yves Montand), a world-weary ex-convict and prison-reform writer is coming back to the dreary town his old prison is in. To someone whose life is so imbued with violence, everything he sees seems like a threat. Indeed, the town appears to be populated solely by thugs and elderly people. The banked fires of his passion are awakened when he sees a perfectly normal looking professional woman (Katherine Ross) coming down the street. Soon afterward, his sense of danger fails him, for he is brutally beaten in a men's restroom by a martial-artist nun. When he is taken for medical treatment, he discovers that the lovely woman he saw earlier is to be his doctor. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yves Montand, Katharine Ross, (more)
- 1971
An Italian engineer who has been working in Sweden returns with his wife to his homeland for a short visit, and he is swiftly detained for some unspecified crime. He moves from horrid prison to even more horrid prison as he awaits trial. His sanity grows ever more shaky in the process, and he still has not learned what the charge is. After even more suffering, he eventually learns the charge against him, just as it is being dropped. This relentless indictment of the Italian prison system is leavened with some humorous moments. The film features comic actor Alberto Sordi, who won a "Best Actor" award for this role at the 1972 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Apparently in the Italy of the 1920s, the only way to keep your home out of the maws of the tax collector was to steal and cheat from everyone in sight -- and the dupes you'd swindle wouldn't know the difference since all their attentions would be focused upon cheating you. That little bit of homespun philosophy is the only conclusion to be drawn from Arabella, a broad sex-farce enlivened with British comic Terry-Thomas appearing in a quartet of roles, and the sexy Virna Lisi as the title character, who is compelled into chicanery in order to prevent her mother's home from being taken away by the tax man. To raise funds, Arabella rooks money from Terry-Thomas, in various fake beard incarnations as a general, a duke, a hotel manger, and an insurance agent. But while she is busy conning the four Thomases, she steps on the toes of an equally tricky burglar (James Fox) and two young lovers -- Giancarlo Giannini and Melina Vukotic. Arabella ultimately becomes attracted to the burglar. Now she must hold her base animal urges in abeyance and concentrate on squeezing more cash out of the Terry-Thomases. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virna Lisi, James Fox, (more)
