Virna Lisi

The complicated travails of several generations of Italian women provide the basis for this drama that is based on a novel by Susanna Tamaro. It begins with the peaceful death of Olga, the elderly family matriarch. Marta, her granddaughter returns from the US to attend the funeral and once in Olga's villa in Trieste, begins reading her grandmother's diary. Olga's story unfolds via flashback. As a young woman, Oldga had to marry Antonio a man she didn't love. Later she became passionately involved with a handsome doctor at the local spa. He impregnates her and shortly thereafter dies in a terrible car wreck. The result of their love is Illaria, who grows up to be terribly neurotic. She bears Marta and then she too dies in an automobile accident, leaving Marta to be raised by Olga. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic story, a couple (Michel Serrault and Virna Lisi) who have been married for over forty years are forced to separate, one to each of their two children's families, when they can no longer pay the rent on their longtime apartment. Absence, in this case, refreshes their memory of the love they have shared, and they take to meeting one another furtively in hotel rooms for sex and affection. One summer, as each of their daughters families takes them on separate vacations, they have had enough, and elope, finding contentment as lighthouse keepers off the coast of Sicily. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This unusual biographical drama explores a period in the life of Nobel Prize-winning Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, (1901-1954) who contributed to the U.S.'s Manhattan Project (which developed the nuclear bomb) after developing the first working nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago in 1942. As a celebrated professor at Rome University in the 1930's Ferm (Ennio Fantastichini) attracted many brilliant students. One of them was the highly gifted and very unstable young mathematitian Ettore Maiorana (Andrea Prodan). Ettore, estranged from his abusive family, was more or less adopted by Fermi and his wife, until Fermi unwittingly betrayed him by admitting to Ettore's mother that he was staying with him. At that point, Ettore, whose mathematical skills far exceeded Fermi's and which had contributed to his development of nuclear physics, began his swift descent into some sort of paranoid state. He began camping out in his family's abandoned estate and eventually disappeared from sight. To this day, no one knows whether he killed himself, was murdered, or successfully changed identities. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Leading man Gabriel Byrne adds a "Harlequin Romance" dash to the two-part, six-hour TV movie Christopher Columbus. Seeking out a swifter route to the lucrative Indies, Genoa-born Columbus begs King John of Portugal (Max Von Sydow) to finance a westbound expedition. Failing this, he turns to Spain's Queen Isabella (Faye Dunaway), who is entranced by Columbus' near-religious fervor. After the famous 1492 expedition, Columbus is bankrolled for future forays into the New World, which win him both adulation and vilification. Originally telecast May 19 and 20, 1985, Christopher Columbus was filmed on location in Spain, Malta and the Dominican Republic, making full use of a $15 million budget. It isn't an earth-shattering cinematic experience, but is lots more worthwhile (and less ponderous) than the brace of Columbus biopics inflicted upon movie audiences in 1992. Those concerned with political correctness should be satisfied with the film's second half, which explores the more sinister elements of chauvinistic colonization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this nostalgic look back at the 1960s through rose-colored glasses, a group of teens meet and frolic and experience their individual emotional maelstroms at a seaside resort one summer -- and then they meet again two decades later. Most of the film is spent on the teen summer, filled with characters such as the wealthy and weighty young man romancing a would-be socialite, and the intellectual fellow who turns from his steady girlfriend to hook up with a powerfully attractive older woman (Virna Lisi). When the teens come together as vintage adults 20 years later, their lives have all changed and the experiences that bonded them during that far away summer echo in everyone's mind. Director Carlo Vanzina treats the teens' relationships with an intentionally light hand, which might unexpectedly make that later "echo" less resounding than intended. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

William Tepper, whose only significant credit to date was the lead role in the Jack Nicholson-directed 1972 cult film (#Drive, He Said), wrote and stars in Miss Right. He plays Terry Bartell, a U.P.I. reported stationed in Rome. Bartell is an inveterate ladies man who suddenly decides he's through playing meaningless romantic games and wants to find "Miss Right." As a prelude to beginning the search, he sets up a series of "farewell" dinners with his three current girlfriends, scheduled in his apartment in two hour intervals. Most of the film consists of these lengthy encounters, including one with veteran Italian actress Virna Lisi, playing an older married woman. Karen Black is another of the ladies, who arrives by jet for a midnight rendezvous and is unpleasantly surprised. The following morning, Terry picks up Juliet (Margot Kidder), indicating that he's not ready to change his lifestyle after all. Miss Right was made in Rome in 1980 by American director Paul Williams for an Italian production company. It was never released theatrically in the United States. The 1989 video release shows signs of extensive cutting and revisions. Actress Clio Goldsmith, listed in the credits, never appears on screen, and British star Jenny Agutter is glimpsed only in a cameo in the opening minute. Williams was known in the late '60s and early '70s for his films about the hippie counterculture, including Out of It (1969) and The Revolutionary (1970). After several years of inactivity he returned in 1978 with the independent feature Nunzio. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this romance, the magic of gay Paris is not lost on a young couple who fall in love there. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A brave German Shepherd defends an elderly gold-mine owner against greedy baddies in this Arctic adventure. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Virna Lisi stars in this slick French romantic thriller. She plays Almy, a beautician on her way to a "fat farm." The story pairs her with a tough, charming race car driver (Maurice Ronet). After he rapes her, she seeks to get revenge by seducing him, but instead finds herself falling in love with him as she taps into his concealed wellsprings of vulnerability. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Yukon adventure is yet another telling of Jack London's tale of a prospector and his loyal sled dog as they battle avaricious villains during their search for gold. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

David Niven is Alex, a scholar who has won the Nobel Prize for developing a universal language. The U.S. State Department has decided to honor him with a statue, to be displayed in London's Grosvenor Square. The commission for the project went to Alex's wife Rhonda (Virna Lisi), who has designed a statue that is completely nude, without even a fig leaf. Husband Alex sees that is it a perfect replica of himself, except for the part usually covered by fig leaves. He accuses his wife of using one of her lovers as a model and begins a hilarious search for the original. Robert Vaughn has some good lines as the American Ambassador, discussing the couple's controversy with the President. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide