Annie Gorassini Movies
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
- Starring:
- John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell, (more)
- 1965
This film has two segments exploring relationships subjected to sudden trauma. In the first, "Violence," a young wife is gang-raped while her husband is forced to watch. Afterwards, neither one even acknowledges what happened. In "Love," a wife is hospitalized after attempting suicide, and her husband flirts innocently with a pretty young nurse. When the wife dies, the husband is consumed with guilt over his perceived unfaithfulness. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Maruchelli (Amedeo Nazzari) is an Italian expatriate who has made his fortune in Argentina. When he throws a lavish party to impress his Italian guests, his stone-faced friend Stefano (Nino Manfredi) feels the sting of not being as successful as his host. Vittorio Gassman co-stars with Silvana Pampanini in this contrasting social comedy drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Amedeo Nazzari, (more)
- 1964
This thriller is set aboard a Frankfurt bound train and chronicles the desperate flight of an East German refugee. When the other Germans learn that the fellow is aboard, they demand that he be turned over to the authorities. Fortunately, the chief authority is a renegade and plans to disobey his orders. His actions nearly cause an international incident between the US and the Soviets and the CO is forced to reluctantly turn in the prisoner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Cult Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci's second "Franco & Ciccio" comedy of 1965, this science fiction-themed farce casts popular comedians Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as a pair of bumbling Russian cosmonauts aboard the spaceship Popov. Their ship loses contact with base, and Soviet space program officials are loathe to face the international humiliation of losing two astronauts, so they send up a second spaceship, a twin of the first. Locating a pair of Italian thieves (also played by Franchi and Ingrassia) who are dead ringers for the lost cosmonauts, the Russians kidnap them and send them up in the duplicate rocketship. Upon their return, the thieves are welcomed as the real thing by their wives and families, but that's when the confusion begins, as the original spaceship returns with the real cosmonauts, setting up a number of farcical situations. Monica Randal and Linda Sini co-star with Enzo Andronico, Maria Silva, and Lino Banfi (credited here as "Pasquale Zagaria," perhaps to fulfill contractual obligations in the Italian-Spanish co-production). The boys returned under Fulci's direction a month later in I Due Parà. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Fresh off of the international success of La Dolce Vita, master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with what is widely believed to be his finest and most personal work. Marcello Mastroianni delivers a brilliant performance as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken. He finds himself harangued by producers, his wife, and his mistress while he struggles to find the inspiration to finish his film. The stress plunges Guido into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque." 8 1/2 won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, and was one of the most influential and commercially successful European art movies of the 1960s, inspiring such later films as Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and even Lucio Fulci's Italian splatter film Un Gatto nel Cervello (1990). ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1963
Italian nuns raise a quiet ruckus to stop a major airline from flying over their village in this gentle comedy. They are upset because the noise from the jets creates a vibration that is threatening to crumble a much-revered ancient fresco. It also interferes with the quiet of their cloistered lives and so the Mother superior and two of her underlings journey to Rome to have a chat with the owner of the airline. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Spaak, Sylva Koscina, (more)
- 1960
Top-heavy with wild action scenes and female pulchritude, this routine Italian costume adventure is set in the 7th century B.C. on the island of Lesbos, where the immortal poetess Sappho (Tina Louise) is leading a revolt against the corrupt government of Mytilene. Aiding her in overthrowing the yoke of tyranny is the handsome Phaon (Kerwin Mathews). For some reason it is the temple of Aphrodite that is the focus of attention in this supposed battle for the rights of the ordinary people, and not the temple of Mars. Sappho's sexual orientation is a moot point. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kerwin Mathews, Tina Louise, (more)
