Claudio Gora Movies

Four unemployed prostitutes attempt to open a restaurant in this comedy. They look all over Rome for a restaurant they can afford. When they find a ramshackle cafe. The landlord is willing to let them have it; they can even use his name to buy the food license, but he has one condition: they must also run a little cathouse upstairs. Their restaurant becomes quite successful, but when their personal lives intervene, the business threatens to fold. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A mild-mannered police commissioner (Martin Balsam) is frustrated at every attempt to capture a political crimelord with legal means, so he is forced to turn to vigilante justice to get his man. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Diabolik (John Phillip Law) is the criminal mastermind who has just pulled off a huge heist. He spends most of his free time with his girlfriend, Eva (Marisa Mell), in fond embrace. The police minister (Terry-Thomas) is approached by Valmont (Adolfo Celi), a master criminal who proposes to use his underworld connections to catch Diabolik for the police. In between their gratuitous lovemaking, he and the exotic Eva are chased by police and the mob in this plodding crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The misleadingly titled Italian comedy Luxury Girls is set in an exclusive Swiss finishing school. Rambunctious American lass Lorna Whitmore Susan Stephan is enrolled in the school by her wealthy parents. Before long, Laura has set the institution on its ear with her precocious behavior. Her female partners-in-"crime" spend their waking hours thinking of men and how to trap them, rather than concentrating on their schoolwork. There are a few attempts along the way to inject a note of seriousness now and then, but for the most part Luxury Girls is a chucklesome romp. While the cast is largely comprised of unknowns, Jacques Sernas does box-office duty as a commoner passing himself off as an aristocrat. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

A Civil War vet returns home to his home in the South and witnesses the outdated attitudes of his family--particularly those of his domineering father. This western drama was filmed on location in Argentina. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

The Italian The Sky is Red (Il Cielo e Rosso) details the romantic adventures of two postwar couples. Despite being confined to a quarantined zone (quarantined for political, rather than health reasons), love finds a way. The neorealistic elements are passable, but what really "sold" this film abroad was its graphic-for-its-times sexual content. The cast is headed by Jacques Sernas and Marina Berti, another step in the right direction box office-wise. One of the young romeos is played by Mischa Auer Jr., son of the famed Russian comic actor. Among the many screenwriters of The Sky is Red is frequent De Sica and Fellini collaborator Cesare Zavattini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For anyone not up on Italian history during World War II, this interesting docudrama about the eventual execution by the Nazis of Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano (Frank Wolf) will have a few gaps. The war is ending and the fascists have clearly lost, so in their last-ditch effort to lay the blame elsewhere they choose Galeazzo Ciano, their former Foreign Minister, as one of several "traitors" to the fascist cause. Neither Mussolini himself nor an offer of the Count's diaries have any effect on the Verona-based trial which condemned and executed several others as traitors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Fabio Bonetti (Alberto Sordi) is a normal bank employee, enjoying the security of a peaceful home with a loving wife and pretty teenage daughter -- until he comes across some film surreptitiously taken by a private investigator that reveals his wife Flavia (Monica Vitti) in a whole new light. The Super-8 clips were taken by mistake -- the private eye thought he was filming the society woman who lives above the Bonetti family -- but they change Fabio completely. Each day he learns a little more -- first, he sees that his wife drinks when no one is around, secondly, he discovers that his daughter sometimes gets high on heroin, and that Flavia was able to save her from a descent into prostitution. Next, he learns that his doctor had (mistakenly, it turns out) told Flavia that Fabio only had a few months to live, and as a final blow, he sees that his wife strayed from her years of fidelity once -- and only once -- and that brings him to the brink of suicide. As time goes by, Fabio not only comes to care for his wife more deeply, he has to consider how he should bridge the gap that has grown between them -- and whether or not he should confront her with the truth. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide