Franco Javarone Movies

Porzia, a beautiful and feisty aristocrat leaves her convent school when her wealthy, blue-blooded fiancé sends a small military regiment to bring her home for their wedding. Handsome Captain Palagano has been particularly charged with keeping the virginal lass safe and intact. The journey across the picturesque country starts off peacefully enough, but when brigands attack, only the girl and Bartolo, a humble coachman, are left alive. Determined to get her home, he and she make the rest of the trip on horseback. Though rude in manner and uneducated, Bartolo proves to be a loyal and courageous ally who sees Porzia through many adventures. This beautifully rendered costume drama offers chaste adventure and fun suitable for the entire family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Marshall McLuhan's statement that the "media is the message" might well be amended by this film to say the "media creates the message." When two prisoners escape from jail and hole up in the apartment of a well-off yet middle-class family -- now held hostage -- the more forward of the two escapees calls the local television station, requesting that they broadcast his demand for a plane to get himself and his cohort out of the country. Once this concession to the power of the televised media is given, the rest follows logically behind. In essence, the television director brings his crew in to film the entire hostage crisis, but hardly satisfied with real-life drama as it unfolds, he proceeds to "direct" the drama for the camera crew, at one point even handing a gun back to the crook so his film coverage will not be interrupted. When a doctor (the apartment owner) removes a bullet from a guard whom the convicts brought with them, the director has him put the bullet back in so it can be filmed as it is taken out -- the world of "instant replay" taking on a reality that overcomes all logic. Needless to say, even when the convicts manage to escape from the building, the television crew is the first to catch up with them, recording every movement "live." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Set in 1919, this confusing, slow-paced, labyrinthian political drama focuses primarily on the confrontation between two military leaders, Konrad von der Berg (Franco Nero) and Erich von Lehner (Helmut Berger). The implication is that the outcome of their meeting will determine whether Germany will be dominated by the Nazis or not. As the two men confront each other in a deserted military camp, they display a wide range of emotions and a seemingly unflagging ability to talk. Flashbacks reveal the history of their relationship. In the end, one destroys the other but then he has to go back and face the rising Nazi menace. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide