Nino Besozzi Movies

Curiously, communist authorities in Eastern Bloc countries frequently allowed "subversive" films to be made, but then withheld them from circulation. Only rarely was production of one of these halted in mid-stream. This is one of those rare films that were begun and then stopped. The director completed it twenty years later, and showed it at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. However, the aging process has also dimmed the memories of the insults to dignity which the film skewers, so that the full meaning of the film is likely only to be accessible to Slovaks who lived through the late '60s and the '70s in that country. The original story, an edenic ménage à trois is broken up by the appearance of people from outside its happy confines. This romance is framed by a story (the '80s footage) in which one of the members of that original trio has been ejected from his antique car during an accident, and is lying in the snow recalling the better days of his youth. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Sophia Loren was twenty-one years old when she starred in this lightly spicy comedy. Antoinette (Loren) is an attractive young woman who is adjusting her stockings one day when a passing news photographer snaps her picture. To Antoinette's shock, the picture appears on the front page of one of Rome's biggest newspapers, and she's angered and embarrassed by the attention; soon, she finds herself fighting off the lustful attentions of Corrado (Marcello Mastroianni), the photographer who turned her into an unwitting cheesecake star, and Count Gregorio (Charles Boyer), a nobleman who tells Antoinette that he can make her a movie star. However, while the Count's attentions have little to do with any real effort to bring her to stardom, in time Corrado finds himself genuinely falling in love with the beautiful Antoinette. Fortuna Di Essere Donna was released in the United States under the titles Lucky To Be A Woman and What A Woman! ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This filmed biography of 19th century composer Giacchino Rossini was originally released in Italy in 1940. Nino Besozzi stars as Rossini, while real-life contralto Paola Barbara plays Rossini's opera-star wife Isabella Colbran. The plot concentrates on the years 1815 through 1827, during which Rossini was commissioned to write such operatic masterpieces as Queen Elizabeth and Otello. His most famous work, William Tell, is only alluded to; Rossini is just about to begin writing the opera when the film fades out. Though most of the actors are little more than animated waxworks, Armando Falconi brings a welcome jolt of vitality in the role of the mercurial King Ferdinando I. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When time came to adapt Aldo De Benedetti's novel Eravamo Sette Sorelle for the screen, De Benedetti undertook the job himself. The title, which translates as We Were Seven Sisters, refers to a septet of chorus girls. United only by their common job and their love for the finer things in love, the seven heroines look around for a wealthy "father." Choosing aristocrat roue Antonio Gandusio as their patsy, each girl arrives separately at Gandusio's doorstep, claiming to be the offspring of one of his previous mistresses. The plot wraps up in conventional fashion when the old man's son falls in love with the most sensible (and likeable) of the girls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Internationally renowned Italian tenor Tito Schipa is the whole show in Vivere (To Live). He plays a rakish widower whose love-'em-and-leave-'em philosophy has gained him fame throughout Europe. The only person whom Schipa truly cares about is his virginal daughter, played by Caterina Boratto. Somewhat hypocritically, he refuses to give Boratto permission to marry, which turns out to have disastrous consequences. The tear-stained climax finds Schipa saving his daughter from the brink of death by singing her favorite aria over a long-distance telephone wire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Heroine Valentina is understandably distraught when she cries out "Ho perduto mio marito!" ("I've lost my husband!") Understandably, but not authentically. It seems that the still-unmarried Valentina has only pretended to lose her fictional hubby during a vacation, so that she may spend a little "quality time" with her bookish cousin Giuliano. Though Valentina has romance in mind, Giuliano takes her seriously and begins conducting a search for her nonexistent spouse. Throughout the search, Valentina constantly needles him by cataloging her imaginary soulmate's perfections, forcing Giuliano to try to come up to the girl's impossibly high standards. Naturally, he finally falls in love with her, at which point the film tactfully ends, never dwelling upon his reaction when he finds out he's been hoodwinked. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide