Jean Sobieski Movies
- 1970
- PG
This uneven comedy finds Fred (Ian McShane) as a writer living off his royalties in Italy. Married to the long-suffering Millie (Ann Calder-Marshall), Fred revels in a series of affairs with a bevy of Italian beauties. Millie soon grows tired of being alone and takes up with two Italian Don Juans (Sammy Pavel and Marino Mase). When she meets Grant Granite (John Gavin), the two immediately fall for each other and are unable to contain their animalistic passion. Joyce Van Patten also appears in this effort that barely scratches the surface of comedy outside of a few running gags. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ian McShane, Anna Calder-Marshall, (more)
Filmed in English, this Italian mystery thriller/melodrama explores the murder of a doctor's wife. The doctor himself (Jean Morel) has long since taken up with a mistress. His wife begged out of engagements as an asthmatic, all the while actually entertaining herself with her part-time job as a stripper. Did the doctor kill her? After all, he took out a large life-insurance policy on his wife. One highlight of this film is the effective use of its San Francisco setting. Another is its gas-chamber sequence, filmed in San Quentin's actual gas chamber. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In this satire, former Italian Resistance hero Natalino (Nino Manfredi) finds himself a total failure as a civilian. He becomes a mercenary when U.S. agents hire him to assassinate a neo-Nazi spy attempting to sneak his soft-drink formula to the communists. The Americans are to pay him $100,000 for the hit. His wife Elvira (Francoise Prevost) finds someone willing to do the job for half the amount. What should have been one gunman turns into five, each one chasing the other and the former Nazi for a coveted secret formula. The comedy comes full circle when the ex-Nazi is hidden in Natalino's apartment and makes love to his wife. After all assassination attempts fail, the spy confesses and kills himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nino Manfredi, Françoise Prevost, (more)
- 1967
This is a deliriously strange thriller about a scientist (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who is breeding headless, boneless chickens at a high-tech farm. He's having an affair with Ewa Aulin, who is plotting with him to kill his wife (Gina Lollobrigida)...and she's plotting with Aulin to kill him...and he and Lollobrigida are plotting...oh, it's too confusing, but extremely memorable. The bizarre, only semi-linear editing and trippy cinematographic techniques are artifacts of the psychedelic era and combine with the twisted story to make any Euro-cultist's dreams come true. A film that defies easy categorization, it veers uneasily between giallo, drug film, and science-fiction, with heavy doses of romance and Antonioni-like weirdness. Some parts are even reminiscent of David Lynch's Eraserhead. Aulin was in the even stranger Microscopic Liquid Subway to Oblivion a few years later. A must-see for genre fans. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1966
In this drama, a married woman begins an affair with an embezzler. Trouble ensues when she discovers that her spouse and her lover murdered an old banker for his inheritance. After she is raped by one of her shady hubby's thugs, the woman asks the advice of a priest who tells her to go to the cops. She does and subsequently goes to live on an isolated Greek island. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1965
In this drama, a highly principled ballet dancer loses her job and is unable to find another. In desperation she takes a job as a burlesque dancer. She becomes quite popular, but she refuses to bare her breasts. Later, after she has a tawdry affair, she faces the grim reality of what she has become and decides to go back to ballet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
