Anita Durante Movies

In this entertaining drama, "Carefree Giovanni" (Sergio Castellitto) is the beleaguered last heir to a dukedom closely associated with the great artist Leonardo da Vinci. As the curtain opens, one of Giovanni's ancestors drops dead when he hears that Leonardo has died. Cut to the present, and the last duke in this line, Giovanni, is miserable in a home shared by two older women who browbeat and badger him without mercy. Giovanni's one solace is to go up on the rooftop and gaze out at the world around him as he daydreams. He has a special passion for the lovely Claire (Eleonora Girogi) who lives next door. To show his sincerity, he zooms off paper airplanes in her direction. However, these missiles are made from actual letters written by the great Leonardo himself. Could this man be last link in the lineage that started 400 years earlier? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

"White Voices" is a vernacular term referring to Italian Castrati of the 18th century Vatican Choir. The Castrati were male children who were castrated so that they could retain their beautiful soprano singing voices into maturity. Paolo Ferrari plays a Roman youth who isn't keen on being gelded and bribes his way out of it. Even so, he trains with the choir and becomes an habitue of the houses of the rich and famous, using his supposed lack of male essentials to his advantage--especially in bed. Ferrari comes a-cropper when he impregnates a girl and is forced to go under the knife to establish an alibi! It is very, very hard to write about White Voices without making a wisecrack, so we'll cut this short (oops!). The film, a French/Italian coproduction, was originally released in France as Le Sex Des Anges and in Italy as I Castrati. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This routine drama set in post-war Italy is the first feature by novice director Sergio Capogna and is based on a best-selling novel by Vasco Pratolini. The story centers around one main protagonist, a young man (Massimo Tonna) who in addition to growing into adulthood, has to come to grips with the post-war conditions in the country. Not overly long on morality at first, he opts for seducing an older widow with the sole intent of stealing as much from her as he can. He follows his plan all the way to the end, with tragic consequences that he did not foresee -- and a lesson learned, too late. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide