Giulio Donnini Movies

A year after Get Carter (1971), director Mike Hodges and star Michael Caine reunited for this comic crime thriller. Caine stars as Mickey King, a writer of cheap paperback detective novels, living in Rome and cranking one noir book after another. King is approached by Ben Dinuccio (Lionel Stander) and offered an abnormally large sum to ghost write the autobiography of a mystery celebrity. The intrigued King agrees and is transported to a remote island where he meets his subject, Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a one-time movie star known for playing gangsters and notorious for hanging out with real-life mobsters off the set (a sly jab at Frank Sinatra and George Raft). Now dying of cancer, Gilbert wants King to jot down his life story before he dies. Although he's an abusive jerk, Gilbert's had an interesting life and King sets about getting it all down on paper, but then the star is murdered at a party, leaving King with no conclusion to his tale. Playing detective like the heroes of his stories, King pieces together a mystery involving Gilbert's past, his ex-wife, a transvestite who's supposed to be dead, and an Italian prince running for office. Though largely dismissed at the time of its release by fans and critics disappointed at its dissimilarity to Get Carter, Pulp (1972) was championed by a few and became something of a cult favorite over subsequent decades. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A suave, sophisticated journalist gets hold of a magic ring of invisibility and obtains a secret formula. As a result he finds himself pursued by Chinese agents in this spoof of James Bond thrillers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

For some reason, the elongated figures limned by the highly astigmatic painter El Greco (1541-1614) perfectly suited the grandees of Spain even though they were clearly anything but realistic, and they fascinate even today. The Greek (Cretan, actually) painter's life in Spain could have served as the basis for a fascinating biography, but the makers of this film chose to concentrate on the bad ol' Inquisition and portray the painter as being warned by his girlfriend that he is being watched; as a foreigner, he is suspected of heresy. Mel Ferrer plays the painter in this historical melodrama which is not nearly as bad as it could have been. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Humphrey Bogart stars as one of five disreputable adventurers who are trying to get uranium out of East Africa. Bogart's associates include pompous fraud Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre as the German-accented "O'Hara", whose wartime record is forever a source of speculation and suspicion. Becoming involved in Bogart's machinations are a prim British married couple (Edward Underdown and blonde-wigged Jennifer Jones). As a climax to their many misadventures and double-crosses, the uranium seekers end up facing extermination by an Arab firing squad. The satirical nature of Beat the Devil eluded many moviegoers in 1953, and the film was a failure. The fact that the picture attained cult status in lesser years failed to impress its star Humphrey Bogart, who could only remember that he lost a considerable chunk of his own money when he became involved in the project. Peter Viernick worked on the script on an uncredited basis. Beat the Devil eventually fell into public domain, leading to numerous inferior editions by second and third-tiered labels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Italian version of Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov understandably suffers in comparison with the lavish internationally produced 1958 remake. Still, the earlier film has much to offer, especially in terms of acting and directing. Reasonably faithful to the original, the film recounts the doleful story of a domineering Russian landowner and the effect his death has on his four sons. Singled out for critical praise was Giulio Donnini as the epileptic Smerdiakov. I Fratelli Karamazov successfully manages to pack most of the novel into 116 minutes, while the more celebrated remake was half an hour longer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide