Giovanna Galletti Movies

In a straightforward yet unexceptional rendering of the life and loves of Alberto (Ben Gazzara), a writer/director approaching the hill though not yet over it, director Alberto Bevilacqua has used his own experiences to fashion a conventional tale about a search for the "perfect woman." His mettlesome neighbor Luisa (Lina Sastri) just will not leave him alone; she was the reason why he ended his marriage to Maura (Claudia Cardinale), but Alberto considers their affair dead and buried. Recently, an anonymous "dream woman" has been calling him for some seductive phone exchanges. As he searches out the identity of the mystery caller he is also distracted by Luisa who starts to insinuate herself back into his affections. Sooner or later, Alberto will just have to decide how to handle his love life, which in the end may only be mesmerizing to himself alone. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this nasty drama, a 17th-century Italian nun's long repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes her. Confused by her unholy emotions, the nun sees that the aristocrat is arrested. Unfortunately, the louse impregnated her and shortly after bearing his child, she helps him escape from prison. Reunited, the two embark upon a passionate affair. One day another nun sees the two making love. Unfortunately, she dies before she can tell anyone. Later the offending nun is captured and given a life sentence for having sex and helping to murder her colleague. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Gina Lollobrigida delivers a bright comic turn in Melvin Frank's farce concerning Carla, an Italian woman who, during World War II, had affairs with three American soldiers who served in the U.S. Army Air Force -- Phil Newman (Phil Silvers), Justin Young (Peter Lawford), and Walter Braddock (Telly Savalas). Finding that she is pregnant after the squadron is transferred, she convinces each of the three soldiers that he is the father of her child. Phil, Justin, and Walter react to Carla's pregnancy by sending her child-support checks -- checks that Carla has been receiving every month from each of them for the past 20 years. Meanwhile, in order to save face in her village, Carla concocted the story that the father was the fictitious Captain Eddie Campbell, who was killed in action. But Carla's deceptions are about to be exposed when she finds out that all three soldiers are returning to her village with their wives and children for a reunion of the squadron. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Aladdin (Donald O'Connor) is a poor young man living in ancient Bagdad, who is given to flights of imagination, and taken with tales of the wealthy and powerful -- in many ways, he's still a boy, and so caught up in his daydreaming that he doesn't realize how his one-time childhood playmate Djalma (Noelle Adam), now a grown young woman, loves him (even if her merchant father thinks he's a worthless loafer). In a moment of indulgence, his mother buys Aladdin an old lamp so that he can have light at night "like a rich man." He accidentally discovers that the lamp contains a genie $Vittorio De Sica), who will grant him three wishes -- but he is so scatterbrained, that he can't figure out exactly how he called the genie in the first place. Aladdin and Djalma both end up headed for Basra and the wedding of the young Prince Malouk (Mario Girotti) to the princess (Michele Mercier), and both are caught up in the plans of the evil Grand Vizier (Fausto Tozzi) to kill the prince and marry the princess himself. Those plans, helped by a malevolent old magician (Raymond Bussieres), include the use of two full-size magical dolls, one a dancing wonder and the other with a deadly embrace. And only Aladdin and his genie, and the brave young prince, can stand in his way. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Roberto Rossellini's Roma, Città Aperta (known in English as Open City) was one of the landmark films of the 1940s on several levels. Aesthetically, it was one of the first major works of Italian neorealist filmmaking and perhaps the single most influential example of the style. Historically, it was among the first postwar European films to gain a significant audience in the United States, opening the door for a greater appreciation of international filmmaking in America. And politically, it was a work of tremendous bravery. The screenplay was written by Roberto Rossellini in association with Federico Fellini and Sergio Amidei while Rome was still occupied by German forces in 1943-44. Rossellini began filming in secret, using scavenged film stock without sound equipment, shortly before the city was liberated in June of 1944. Several key members of his creative team had been active in the Italian resistance movement. With its rough, documentary-style look, multi-layered narrative, and a cast that mixed amateurs with actors who didn't look like film stars, Roma, Città Aperta captured the harsh and unforgiving textures of real life as few movies of its time had dared. It set the pace for Italian Neorealism as an influential postwar film style that combined outdoor light and location shooting with non-actors, a focus on simple stories of everyday life, and a concern for the poor and for social problems. Roma, Città Aperta shows the lives of a group of people living in Rome during the Nazi occupation, after the Germans had declared it an "open city." Anna Magnani plays a woman in love with a member of a resistance group; in helping him, she risks not only her own life, but also that of her unborn child. Aldo Fabrizi plays a priest who aids the anti-Nazi cause and pays dearly for his activism. Marcello Pagliero is an outspoken communist who runs afoul of the Nazis. And Harry Feist plays a German officer who has taken an Italian lover, but whose affection for Romans does not run especially deep. While Roma, Città Aperta shows flashes of the melodramatic sentimentality that would mark much of Rossellini's later work, it still rings true as a chronicle of a city under siege and as the genesis of a powerful new film style whose influences include such later filmmakers, among many others, as John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Spike Lee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide