Mario Gallo Movies

Mariella has two teen-aged children, but that doesn't seem to have much impact on her life. She continues to be a reporter obsessed with digging for the next story, no matter what the personal difficulties involved. Her ex-husband is similarly involved in his career, and their son Paolo has had enough of this sort of parental indifference. He has split, flown the coop, disappeared, run away, and abandoned the nest. However, if his absence was intended to electrify his inattentive parents into paying attention to him (even in his absence), it almost looks as though the attempt will fail. Days go by before his unspeakable mother even notices he hasn't been around for a while. However, she's not an investigative reporter for nothing, and eventually, with the help of her current boyfriend, she tracks down her indignant offspring -- but not before she's given the essential clue to his whereabouts by his industrious eleven-year old sister, who has wired their entire apartment for sound, and who has hooked her computer up to all sorts of unlikely extensions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The last days in the life of fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his family are told from the point of view of his ill-fated son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano (Anthony Hopkins) in this crammed, two-hour historical biography. Originally filmed as a four-part miniseries, the two-hour reduction leaves a very speeded-up view of the time between the Allied landing in Italy and Mussolini's death. As events worsen for the dictator (shown shuffling around in slippers at home like a domesticated pet) he begins to lose his support, including that of his son-in-law Galeazzo. After the German army frees him from a brief detention by Partisan forces, the dictator orders Galeazzo's execution. Italy has obviously lost the war, but Mussolini seems to be living in his own small world. Susan Sarandon plays Mussolini's daughter and Galeazzo's wife, Bob Hoskins is the dictator, and Barbara De Rossi is Mussolini's doomed mistress, Claretta.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Saverio is a young man with ambitions different from those of his father. Unfortunately, his father is a disciplinarian and a school educator who insists that his son should follow in his own footsteps. When the boy misses an examination which would qualify him for a teaching post, the pair have a long-delayed confrontation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on the story by Mikhail Bulgakov, this Italian film tells the story of Preobrazhensky (Max Von Sydow), a surgeon, who is a professor of medicine in Moscow. Because he occupies a "big" 5-room apartment, after the Russian revolution is thoroughly in place, he is visited by the housing committee, who feels that he should share this spaciousness with several others. In an experiment he implants a dog with the heart and brain of a tramp. The dog gradually transforms into a man (Cochi Ponzoni), but still has some doggy attitudes: for instance, in the original story he chooses to call himself Sharikov (in the film he is called Bobikov). Since Sharik is a common Russian dog name, just as "Rex" might be in the West, it is clear where the man-dog's sympathies lie. Bobikov becomes associated with the local Party officialdom, and begins to terrorize the professor and his assistant, Dr. Bormental (Mario Adorf). After he becomes a member of the housing committee, he wangles a room in the professor's apartment. And after becoming a member of a state committee to deal with stray animals, Bobikov refuses to allow dogs to be killed, only cats. Bulgakov's works were very hard to find in Russia. After perestroika people began reading them for the first time, and were amazed to discover how daringly he criticized the emerging Soviet system. This Italian production is perhaps not the most successful realization of the story: a Russian TV version was made in 1987. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide