Lorella de Luca Movies

Marco (Claudio Bigagli) is an insurance adjuster who must travel all over Tuscany in order to investigate and settle claims put through by his firm's various branches. This brings in a tidy sum of money, and he has every reason to expect that he will continue to prosper in his work. He manages quite successfully to organize every event in his own life, but he can't manage the lives of others. His tidy and reasonably satisfying world comes unglued when his mother's extramarital affair causes dissension between her and his father. The tidiness of his life is also undone when his former girlfriend actually gets married, and his current girlfriend dumps him. Soon he is irritated even by his work, and then the real hysteria sets in. The only thing he can think to do is to opt out of having such a tidy, predictable, yuppiefied life, and this is what he does. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This Italian film was made for the blaxploitation action niche, but sloppy dubbing and unintentionally funny dialogue kept it from packing the kind of action punch needed for box-office success. Father Charlie (Lino Venturi) is an ex-con who has been granted an exemption from canon law to become a priest. When a friend of his gets into trouble which looks suspiciously like a frame-up, Father Charlie decides to investigate, with or without the blessing of his bishop. His friend Lee Stevens (Isaac Hayes) is looking for the real culprit as well, and Father Charlie and Lee soon join forces. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this spaghettiesque western, a supposedly dead man returns to his village and finds his family being held captive by an evil desperado and his gang. The frightened man does all he can to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Domenica e Sempre Domenica (Sunday is Always Sunday) is one of several late-1950s films to be based on a successful TV series. In this instance, the program is Il Muschiere, which in 1958 was one of the most popular attractions on Italy's RAI-TV network. Il Muschiere was a game show, in which contestants returned on a weekly basis for ever-increasing cash prizes (sound familiar?) The film purports to depict the preparations made by the program's participants for their "big moment". Some of the funniest and most poignant vignettes are offered by Vittorio De Sica as a near-bankrupt paterfamilias and Alberto Sordi as a compulsive contestant. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Five romantic and funny vignettes comprise this Italian anthology that is set amidst the beauty and fun of the famed French coastline. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A mix of young men and women fall in love for the first time in this standard romantic comedy by Mario Camerini. Parents also enter into the picture since their own hang-ups and virtues combine to affect their offspring's attitudes and behavior. Sometimes parents inadvertently do the wrong thing, as when the mother of a love-struck daughter ends up causing her daughter's boyfriend to fall for her -- the mother. Other teens are working out issues of self-esteem, always exacerbated when someone interesting comes along. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Swindle and The Swindlers are both English-language titles for 1955's Il Bidone, a lesser-known effort from Federico Fellini. Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, and Franco Fabrizi play a trio of con artists who victimize the Italian bourgeoisie (who are shown to be no better than the crooks). Giueletta Masina (Fellini's wife), who had previously costarred with Richard Basehart in La Strada, here plays Basehart's wife. Humphrey Bogart had been intended for the role played by Broderick Crawford; one wonders how Crawford's self-deprecating curtain speech about the hollowness of his existence would have played in Bogart's hands. Swindle was not released to the US until nine years after its completion. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi