Franco Fabrizi Movies

Bruno Martel Luc Merenda is an idealistic hero who questions the meaning of life in this confusing and sometimes hallucinatory erotic drama. After a night in jail, he is gang-raped by punk rockers in a garbage dump. He later saves an old man who believes he is Garibaldi Alberto Sorrentino and a woman he believes is Ophelia Susanna Javicoli. Bruno watches helplessly as she later jumps from a window. The feature recalls some of the more avant garde efforts of Italian cinema from the 1960s. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The Spanish/Italian Rocket From Calabuch is significant only as the last film of beloved character actor Edmund Gwenn. The 78-year-old star plays a retired atomic scientist who settles in a peaceful Spanish village. But he can't remain sedentary for long, and soon he's off and about developing a new kind of rocket. So much for his retirement, and so much for the peace and quiet in his village, which is soon overrun with reporters and spies. Rocket From Calabuch was originally released in Spain as simply Calabuch; the film didn't make it to the states until after Edmund Gwenn's death in 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this black comedy, a struggling actor-playwright goes on tour with a play he wrote for himself and his lover. It is about the life and love between Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petracci, his mistress. When his show travels to Italy it meets with a very negative response from the local Communists who throw tomatoes at them. To get them to stop, the actor changes their minds by placing emphasis on the romance between the two rather than the politics. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice stars Dirk Bogarde as a German composer who is terrified that he has lost all vestiges of humanity. While visiting Venice, Bogarde falls in love with a beautiful young boy (Bjorn Andresen). The relationship is ruined by Bogarde's obsession with the boy's youth and physical perfection; the composer realizes that the child represents an ideal that he can never match. The character played by Dirk Bogarde is evidently intended to be Gustav Mahler, whose haunting music is featured on the film's soundtrack. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in ancient Rome, this film follows the struggle of Roman triplets as they battle their Alban arch-enemies to prevent Rome from being annexed to Alba. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The Italian Man with a Flower in His Mouth bears no relation to the Luigi Pirandello one-act play of the same title. Also known as Flower in His Mouth, and The Masters this thriller stars Jennifer O'Neill as an American schoolteacher, newly arrived in Sicily. No sooner has she assumed her duties in a remote rural town than a series of ritual murders begins. Is Jennifer the catalyst, the cause...or merely the excuse? The film's original Italian title was Gente di Rispetto. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entertaining drama, "Carefree Giovanni" (Sergio Castellitto) is the beleaguered last heir to a dukedom closely associated with the great artist Leonardo da Vinci. As the curtain opens, one of Giovanni's ancestors drops dead when he hears that Leonardo has died. Cut to the present, and the last duke in this line, Giovanni, is miserable in a home shared by two older women who browbeat and badger him without mercy. Giovanni's one solace is to go up on the rooftop and gaze out at the world around him as he daydreams. He has a special passion for the lovely Claire (Eleonora Girogi) who lives next door. To show his sincerity, he zooms off paper airplanes in her direction. However, these missiles are made from actual letters written by the great Leonardo himself. Could this man be last link in the lineage that started 400 years earlier? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Italian maestro Federico Fellini's first international success is a nakedly autobiographical film that bears many of the formal and thematic concerns that recur throughout his work. Set in the director's hometown of Rimini, I Vitelloni follows the lives of five young vitelloni, or layabouts, who while away their listless days in their small seaside village. Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), the leader of the pack, marries his sweetheart, but finds himself constantly distracted by other women. Meanwhile, would-be playwright Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste) continues work on his dreary plays, dreaming of staging them one day. Clownish Alberto (Alberto Sordi) still lives at home with his mother and sister, Olga (Claude Farell), while boasting of preserving the family honor by watching over her. While the movie seems to pay little attention to Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini) and Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi), the latter eventually emerges as its key character, plainly serving as Fellini's alter ego. Stuck in adolescence, the five friends stumble into various misadventures, as they seek to spice up their uneventful provincial lives. Ultimately, one of them breaks free from their self-imposed paralysis and moves on, leading to one of the most poignant farewell sequences in film history. A hit in Italy upon its release, I Vitelloni secured Fellini's reputation as an up-and-coming talent, while also introducing its title into Italian vernacular. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

Prolific director Giorgio Bianchi comes off with another good comedy in Il Moralista, due in no small part to the talents of Alberto Sordi as Agostino, the de facto head of a censorship board whose double life as a nightclub owner might raise some questions as to his censorial judgment. The titular head of the organization (Vittorio De Sica) is not that interested in running it himself, being more interested in women. The censors must review everything from posters for a show to the costumes in a show, as well as a production's language and content. Given their predilections, Agostino and his boss are unlikely candidates for making others walk the straight and narrow path of socially acceptable fare. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) is a young woman from the country who gets caught up in the tempestuous temptations of the big city in this somber moral drama. She has a series of affairs that are just for fun, but she becomes depressed when she desperately looks for a more meaningful relationship. The only men she finds sympathy with are a battered boxer (Mario Adorf) and a publicity agent (Nino Manfredi). Ugo Tognazzi has a brief part as a washed-up actor. Adriana's dreams are crushed to the point that she considers suicide her only alternative. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

An ordinary man is driven to violence in the name of revenge in this drama. Paul Varlin (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a businessman who decides to take his wife and daughter on a vacation. While stopping for gas, Varlin's wife is accosted by a gang of motorcycle thugs, who progress from ogling her legs to raping both the wife and the young girl, and then killing them both. When Varlin discovers this horrible crime, he takes it upon himself to track down and kill the bikers in the name of justice. L'Agression also features Catherine Deneuve and Claude Brasseur. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Italian action film focuses on a crook, framed as a drug kingpin, whose wife is killed by the mob as a result. He must take matters into his own hands to have revenge. Manhunt was also re-titled The Italian Connection to steal thunder from its French counterpart. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide