Sergio Bazzini Movies

Peter Del Monte directed this Italian drama about Polish immigrants in Rome, adapted from E. Albinati's novel, The Polish Car Window Cleaner. When Janusz (Romuald Andrzej Klos) arrives in Rome with his family, they seek employment while awaiting visas to travel on to Canada. The men in the family clean windshields of vehicles stuck in Rome's massive traffic jams. Attractive daughter Justyna (Agata Buzek), who takes care of an ill child, has a run-in with rapists. Janusz mysteriously vanishes, and his son Rafal (Kim Rossi Stuart) fears he is dead. Janusz' demented brother Zygmunt (Olek Mincer) begins to wander about the city. Janusz is on the brink of happiness with a beautiful Bulgarian, Irina (Eljana Nikolova Popova), when a botched robbery results in his being charged with murder. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Wealthy patriarch Gregorio Ferramonte (Anthony Quinn) openly lusts after his new daughter-in-law (Dominique Sanda). Seemingly resistant at first to the lecherous Quinn, Sanda rapidly succumbs to his crude charms. There's a little more to the story than that: Sanda knows that Quinn is dying, and that he hasn't yet chosen anyone to inherit his fortune. Things get pretty hot and heavy at times, especially in the original 121 minute version prepared for Italian audiences. The Inheritance was originally released as Eredita Ferramonti. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, this political thriller/drama explores the ordeal of Linda Murri (Catherine Deneuve), a 19th-century upper-class Italian woman who was caught in an unhappy marriage and who broke the code of behavior for aristocrats by taking a lower-class lover. After her husband was murdered, Murri stood trial for the murder. Her professor father's socialist opinions were clearly the reason for the harshness of the prosecution. The case was widely known throughout Italy at the time, and caused a national furor. Murri did not actually arrange to murder her boorish nobleman husband Count Bonmartini (Paolo Bonacelli); rather, she told her brother how unhappy she was and that she was afraid for her life. He acted on her complaint by taking the drastic step of murder. The trial resulted in her being given a long prison term, along with her brother (Giancarlo Giannini), her lover Carlo Secci (Ettore Manni) and her brother's assistants Pio and Rosa (Corrado Pani and Tina Aumont). The relentlessness of the prosecutor Giudice Stanzani (Marcel Bozzuffi) and the spinelessness of the family patriarch Augusto Murri (Fernando Rey), the professor with the unpopular opinions, are key dramatic features of this complex story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This offbeat combination of reality and fantasy finds Glauco (Michel Piccoli) returning home from his job as an industrial engineer to find his wife (Anita Pallenberg) in bed with a headache. Deciding to fix dinner for himself, he reads from a gourmet cookbook as he watches television, or listens to the radio. He runs across an old .45 caliber handgun and he cleans the weapon between attending to his culinary creation. He later goes to bed, but rises when he is restless and goes to make love with the maid (Annie Girardot), after which he examines the newly painted revolver. After shooting his wife to death, he imagines he is driven to the ocean where he swims out to a boat bound for Tahiti and takes a job as a cook. The title is a reference to the notorious American gangster who could shoot his way out of any place but the police line in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Grazie Zia is better known by its English-language title Thank You, Aunt. As an act of defiance against a world he never fit into, 17-year-old Alvise (Lou Castel) has willed himself into a state of psychosomatic paralysis. From the vantage point of his wheelchair, Alvise cruelly manipulates all those around him. The only one who seems to resist his tyranny is his gorgeous aunt Lea (Lisa Gastoni). Hopelessly in love with Lea, Alvise determines to "conquer" her as well. Her response to his insidious mind games is hardly what Alvise expects, but it's certainly what the audience has been clamoring for since Reel One. To call Grazie Zia kinky would be putting it mildly. The film was also released as Come Play With Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide