Christian de Sica Movies

3 is indeed the title of this Italian film about a menage a trois, set among the nobility in the Tuscany of the 1780s. It is interesting to note that the film's director and star, Christian De Sica, is a son of notable Italian director Vittorio De Sica (Umberto D, The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis, etc.). Christian's influential family contributed heavily to the making of this film. Baron Jacopo Del Serchio (Christian De Sica) and his wife Chiara (Anna Galiena) are constantly looking for ways to spice up their sexual lives. One of their favored sports is to watch the servants coupling. However, their tranquility is interrupted when a beautiful young man, Leonardo (Paolo Conticini), sets out to bed them both, and succeeds. Their threefold joining is not a problem, but Leonardo's greater affection for Chiara is, as it leads to the bisexual Baron being jealous of them both. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Italian comic fantasy about time travel begins with Ascanio (Christian de Sica), an Italian nobleman, and Walter (Massimo Boldi) a film executive, also Italian, on a deluxe tour of Universal Studios. They sit down side-by-side and are hooked into a virtual reality machine by its inventor, Professor Mortimer (Dean Jones). When something goes wrong, they find themselves hopping around in time, again and again narrowly escaping death. Their first travel takes them to prehistoric times. Then they find themselves in Renaissance Florence under the watchful eye of Lorenzo de Medici, who is highly amused by Ascanio's soccer moves. Narrowly escaping the Inquisition, they jump centuries in time to Venice in the time of Casanova, where their efforts at a romantic liaison with some of Casanova's women are thwarted. In one of the film's highlights, Ascanio jumps into his own past, and attempts to change his personal future. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this very Italian comedy, the romantic lives of a group of 35 year old former high-school chums go through a series of dramatic changes in the course of a single evening at a reunion dinner party. The film's director Carlo Verdone plays Piero, a schoolteacher who has a frustrating relationship with his nagging wife and a tentative one with his student, Cristina (Natasha Hovey). Things gets complicated for Piero when both show up at the dinner. Hostess Federica (Nancy Brilli makes no secret of the fact that she's a rich man's mistress, hence the stunning villa where the party is held. Among the guests are a sleazy, third rate entertainer (Christian De Sica), a happily unwed mother (Luisa Maneri) and a psychologist forced to listen to everyone's problems (Athena Cenci). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Neither the idiotic title Detective School Dropouts nor the film's alternate cognomen Dumb Dicks are worthy of this easy-to-take crime comedy. David Landsberg stars as a likeable schlemiel who is addicted to detective stories. He links up with down-and-out gumshoe Lorin Dreyfuss (brother of Richard--and also, with David Landsberg, the co-writer of this film), hoping that some of Dreyfuss' so-called expertise will rub off on him. This far-from-dynamic duo soon find themselves embroiled in an Italian family feud, a kidnapping, and a murder charge. One of the few Golan/Globus films to lose money, Detective School Dropouts has happily found an enthusiastic audience thanks to multiple cable-TV showings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Perhaps taking a cue from the popular 1970s Brit television comedy "Are You Being Served?," this Italian department store comedy is a series of skits involving customers and store personnel from several departments. In one skit, Elena (Laura Antonelli) and her husband the personnel director, are certain that an inept salesman in the bathroom fixtures department is actually the son of the store's owner. They launch into a campaign to woo him over without bothering to check up on his credentials. In another skit, the famous Italian actress Ornella Muti, playing herself, walks into one of the men's departments and sends a salesclerk into near heart failure. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Years before, the millionaire Pierre (Alain Flick) destroyed the wealthy nobleman Count Max's fortune. In the present, Alfredo (Christian De Sica), a restless young mechanic who resembles the count, has fallen in love with a model (Ornella Muti) and wants some new adventure in his life. In return for his agreement to get revenge on the Count's old foe, he gets lessons in how to behave like the count himself. He tracks down the model, woos her successfully, and persuades her to join forces with him to go to Morocco and confront the nefarious millionaire. Once there, they lose all their resources. Oddly enough, the so-called villain of the story has fallen in love with Alfredo, and the mechanic allows himself to be joined in matrimony to the other man in an unusual Arab ceremony. This is a remake of a film made popular twice before by Christian De Sica's father, famed actor/director Vittorio De Sica. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The lives of four middle-aged gay men are chronicled in this bittersweet Italian drama. The men are the cynical Dado, who tries to come to grips with his expanding waistline, receding hairline and the thought of spending the rest of his life alone; the catty Tony, a shirt designer who is still too bonded in a complex relationship with his overbearing mother, Sandro, a film producer who only recently came out of the closet after years of feigning heterosexuality, and Vittorio, a heartbroken architect trying to cope with the fact that his beloved went out and married a woman. Their stories are told as brief vignettes and chronicle a six-month period. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

As an ex-husband (Johnny Dorelli), his wife (Laura Antonelli), and their two children take a vacation on the ex's new yacht, the scene is set for disaster when it becomes clear that the ex-husband knows absolutely nothing about yachting. The crew quickly find out that the Mediterranean has its own challenges, and the wife discovers her particular nemesis in a thoroughly unlikeable playboy (Christian De Sica) who has his sights set a little too firmly on her alone. The interaction between the triad of wife, ex-husband, and playboy reaches a final resolution as the yacht moves closer to its own special fate. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Italian filmmaker Neri Parenti directs the gross-out Christmas comedy Natale Sul Nilo, which is one in a series of madcap holiday movies. Captain Enrico Ombroni (Massimo Boldi) doesn't want his teenage daughter Lorella (Lucrezia Piaggio) to be a TV showgirl on the popular program They'll Be Famous, so he takes her on a vacation cruise to the Nile. Also on board is the captain's lieutenant Saltalaquaglia (Biagio Izzo) and attorney Fabio Ciulla (Christian De Sico). While in Cairo, Fabio is seduced by his son's fianceé (Nuria De La Furente), much to the dismay of his wife, Gianna (Mabel Lozano). Fabio and Ombroni get stranded in the desert and are subsequently rescued by sleazy Oscar (Enzo Salvi) and his entourage of TV showgirls. Natale Sul Nilo was a success at the Italian box office. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Ricky (Renato Pozzetto) has been a prosperous businessman, but lately things haven't been going so well, and he isn't sure why. Whatever the reason, he attempts suicide and is saved by Barabbas (Christian De Sica), a very peculiar man with the hereditary vocation of being a hobo (he's the seventh generation). Not only is Barabbas a hobo, but he's got a real talent for living elegantly and well. As Barabbas restores his new friend's spirits, he also investigates the causes for his business reversals and discovers that the culprit is his adulterous wife (Francesca Reggiani), who has been sharing her bed and important business secrets with a business rival. Together, they concoct a scheme to put things right. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide