Alberto Moravia Movies

Based on the Alberto Moravia novel, Husbands and Lovers examines a modern couple's untraditional open marriage. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This depressing three-part drama was financed by the Arts Bureau of the Organization for the Propagation of Islamic Thought. An impoverished couple worried about their daughter's future tries to find an adoptive home for their little girl, and a man with a history of mental instability tries to care for his aging mother. Part three concerns a pedlar who is witness to a gangland murder. He is constantly plagued by visions of the mob who are trying to kill him. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The ugly duckling becomes a swan and exacts her revenge in this complex drama. All her life, the fat, homely child had been ignored by her rich, and gorgeous mother. The child bitterly resents this. Tensions explode when the daughter catches her mother in bed with her lover and the maid. The enraged mother tells the girl that she was bought from a hooker because the mother could not bear children. This drives the poor girl to suicide. She fails and is hospitalized. There she loses her weight and blossoms into a great beauty. She returns home with vengeance in her heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The conformist is 1930s Italian Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a coward who has spent his life accommodating others so that he can "belong." Marcello agrees to kill a political refugee, on orders from the Fascist government, even though the victim-to-be is his college mentor. The film is a character study of the kind of person who willingly "conforms" to the ideological fashions of his day. In this case, director Bernardo Bertolucci suggests that Marcello's desire to conform is rooted in his latent homosexuality. In addition to its strong storyline, the film is critically revered for the astonishing production design by Nedo Azzini, which, together with Vittorio Storaro's camerawork, recreates the atmosphere of Fascist Italy with some of the most complex visual compositions ever seen on film, filled with highly stylized uses of angles, shapes, and shadows. The Conformist was cut by five crucial minutes when first released in the US; those missing moments were restored in the 1994 reissue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Horst Bucholz plays Dino, a painter who realizes he has no artistic vision and decides to move back into his wealthy mother's (Betty Davis) home. Just before he does this, however, he falls in love with beautiful and self-serving Cecilia (Catherine Spaak). Though Dino diligently attempts to convince her to marry him, she refuses, but offers to be his lover until someone better strikes her fancy. When that becomes an actuality, Dino does not fare well under the emotional trauma and has a nervous breakdown. With the help of his mother, Dino recovers to find he may not be completely devoid of talent after all. Based on La Noia, an Italian novel by Alberto Moravia. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Director Pier Paolo Pasolini interviews a variety of Italians and asks them questions about love, marriage, infidelity, prostitution and homosexuality. Psychologist Cesare Musatti and writer Alberto Moravia offer their thoughts on the subject in this Italian documentary with English subtitles. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Contempt is the story of the end of a marriage. Camille (Brigitte Bardot) falls out of love with her husband Paul (Michel Piccoli) while he is rewriting the screenplay Odyssey by American producer Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance). Just as the director of Prokosch's film, Fritz Lang, says that The Odyssey is the story of individuals confronting their situations in a real world, Le Mépris itself is an examination of the position of the filmmaker in the commercial cinema. Godard himself was facing this situation in the production of Le Mépris. Italian producer Carlo Ponti had given him the biggest budget of his career, and he found himself working with a star of Bardot's magnitude for the first time. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

Director Mauro Bolognini and Goffredo Parise adapted a skillful Alberto Moravia story into this rather pedestrian drama. An eligible widow (Ingrid Thulin) vacations in Venice with her young son. When Thulin begins a tentative romance with friendly John Saxon, her resentful son runs away from home and gets into trouble, falling in with a gang of hooligans. The rest of the film is bland and predictable, as the harsh realities of street life teach the youngster some valuable lessons, most of which are hammered home with redundant narration. Plot mechanics aside, however, Aldo Tonti's rich cinematography still makes the film worthwhile for those who swoon at the sight of the Lido. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Romance, sex, and marriage are the themes of this episodic Italian comedy. The first of the four vignettes, "The Women" tells the story of a bored adulterer who feels ignored by his gaggle of mistresses and decides to obsess upon seducing an old conquest one more time. He later inadvertently deflowers a virgin. In "The Serpent" an ignored wife endeavors to get her husband to pay attention to her while they are on a Sicilian holiday by faking an encounter with a poisonous snake. She later pretends that two helpful truck drivers, who picked her up after a breakdown, raped her causing their arrest. Later the husband arrives, explains his wife's behavior and promises to be more mindful of her. In "The Soldier" a soldier attempts to seduce a lovely widow during a train ride. She ignores him until all the other passengers leave then in utter silence makes passionate love. Later when the train reaches its destination, the soldier tries to follow her, but her relatives stop him. She gets into a car and disappears down the road. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Also known as The Passionate Thief, this fast-paced crime comedy stars Anna Magnani as the fly in the ointment for a pair of disreputable types. Pickpockets Toto and Ben Gazzara don't want Magnani around while they ply their trade, but she manages to foul up their plans by falling in love with their "pigeon", American tourist Fred Clark. Gazzara briefly rids himself of Magnani by pinning a robbery rap on her. Upon her release from jail, she is reunited with Toto, who has loved her all along. Since it is established early on that Magnani is a movie extra and Toto an out-of-work actor, Risate di Giola gets away with a few jibes at the Italian film industry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Normally, an actor or actress in a foreign-language film was not the ideal candidate for an Academy Award, inasmuch as his or her English-language "performance" was often dubbed in by an anonymous third party. Such was not the case of Sophia Loren in Two Women (La Ciociara), who did her own English dubbing. Adapted by director Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini from the novel by Alberto Moravia, Two Women is the semi-neorealist account of widow Cesira (Loren) and her teenaged daughter, Rosetta (Eleanora Brown), as they struggle to survive in war-ravaged Italy. A conventional romantic triangle between mother, daughter, and Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo), is barely under way when the war rears its ugly head once more. Seeking shelter in a bombed-out church, Cesira and Rosetta are attacked and raped -- a horrifying sequence, capped by a freeze-frame close-up of Rosetta, her face a taut mask of terror (this image was enough to prompt a virulent "anti-smut" editorial in The Saturday Evening Post). Once they've recovered from this appalling experience, mother and daughter are offered a ride back to Rome by friendly truck driver Florindo (Renato Salvatori). Though Cesira had hoped to keep her daughter from compromising herself as a means of survival, she is crushed to discover that Rosetta has given herself to the truck driver in exchange for a pair of stockings. When Cesira and Rosetta finally reconcile, it is a grievous occasion, mourning the death of their mutual love, Michele. A last-minute replacement for Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren brought hitherto untapped depths of emotion to her performance in Two Women; she later stated that she was utilizing "sensory recall," dredging up memories of her own wartime experiences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Racconti Romani (Roman Tales) is a fast-paced comedy based on the short stories of Alberto Moravia. Tying the various narratives together is a gang of young Romans who'll do anything to line their pockets with money. Unfortunately, most of their schemes are at odds with the Law, and most culminate with the schemers losing what little cash they already have. Still, the young protagonists don't learn their lesson until they become mixed up with a counterfeiting ring. The well-chosen cast includes Franco Fabrizi as the gang's leader, Silvana Pampanini as his ever-patient wife, and Vittorio de Sica and Toto in cameo roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide