Christina Marsillach Movies

Set in Barcelona at the end of the 1950s, this melodrama revolves around a swaggering, petty criminal who tries to impress with his motorcycle skills and black leathers as he seduces one of the servants in a wealthy family and then goes after the blond daughter of the household. His plans are destroyed when the servant becomes hospitalized and eventually dies of unknown causes, catalyzing the rich family to send their daughter away and go after the young hoodlum to end his days of delinquency. Undistinguished in its script and the interpretations of the main protagonists, this film does not hold attention securely enough to keep it from slipping. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This sequel to Valentina jumps ahead eight years where the gentle-poet Pepe is studying in a university and doing an internship in a pharmacy lab. Though it has nearly been a decade, he is still in love with the beautiful Valentina. Unfortunately, things in Spain are getting more tense as his countrymen prepare to rebel against the oppressive government. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This fictional treatment of an actual incident in Barcelona, Spain involves a man who brutalizes his family and those who work underneath him with no concern for anyone except himself. The story may not be far away from the truth for many families in many countries. Costa (Agustin Gonzalez) is a member of the former right-wing extremists Fuerza Nueva and has built a little empire for himself in the construction and real-estate business. He freely and frequently abuses his wife and four children, and in fact only one daughter is not terrified of him. Costa goes around with a bodyguard -- since even he is aware of the hatred he engenders -- but his ultimate mistake lies in assuming that the victims of his vicious temper may not be quite as weak as the spineless jellyfish he sees in them. The result of his excesses finally culminates in an irreversible act of violence that may -- or may not -- result in court action. Although a little flawed by technical problems with the sound and a somewhat disjointed, episodic telling of the tale, this drama is sure to keep viewers involved in the action.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The polar-opposite worlds of opera and horror collide in this gory giallo film from director Dario Argento. Christina Marsillach (Tom Hanks' romantic interest in Every Time We Say Goodbye) stars as Betty, a beautiful understudy who gets an unlikely break to play the female lead in a contemporary opera of Verdi's Macbeth. Her fear of Macbeth's notorious curse proves to have foundation when a psychopath with a strange connection to Betty murders a stage hand in the midst of her debut and later kills several ravens being used in the opera. Characters introduced at this point who could be the killer include: the show's director, Marco (Ian Charleson); Betty's publicist, Mira (Daria Nicolodi); and the police inspector, Alan Santini (Urbano Barberini). The middle third of the film is devoted to the killer's bloody work which serves to torment Betty. The madman binds her and tapes a row of tiny needles beneath her eyes so that she is forced to watch him butcher a young stage manager and a costume designer, among others. With the police investigation going nowhere and the killer zeroing in on Betty's death, Marco decides to enact his own plan to stop the madman; he releases the ravens (apparently, they always remember their enemies) during a performance. The birds circle wildly before attacking the killer and plucking one of his eyeballs out. He absconds with Betty, but dies in a fire after revealing his demented motivation and his connection to the young singer. A final scene set in the Swiss mountains provides a couple of final shocks. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

Italy was finally unified in the latter half of the nineteenth century under the revolutionary leader Giuseppi Garibaldi (1807-1882), and the whole nation was then given by him to the rulership of its king, Victor Emmanuel II. One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco (Giancarlo Giannini), the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his queen Maria Sofia (Ornella Muti). This serio-comic drama follows the deposed king and his queen as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. Not only that, but she is frantic to have a baby and heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother. He is spending all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Valeria is having a difficult time finding her center of gravity and is currently really angry at her boyfriend. She is living in Rome, studying art restoration, but her real home is in Spain. She's something of a loose cannon these days. After moving out of her old quarters, she takes up with a gay male couple and cheerfully seduces the more susceptible of the two. After that, she travels in the countryside with one of her instructors and a famous friend of his and has a brief liaison with a man she meets there. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide