Alfredo Rizzo Movies

In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He yearns to write seriously, but his inconsequential newspaper pieces bring in more money, and he's too lazy to argue with this setup. He attaches himself to a bored socialite (Anouk Aimée), whose search for thrills brings them in contact with a bisexual prostitute. The next day, Marcello juggles a personal tragedy (the attempted suicide of his mistress (Yvonne Furneaux)) with the demands of his profession (an interview with none-too-deep film star Anita Ekberg). Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it and so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective "Felliniesque" in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics CIrcle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Victor Mature stars in this European-based crime thriller. Mature is an FBI agent on the trail of a drug smuggling operation, following his quarry all over the Continent (with accompanying pretty pictures of Portugal, Spain, France etc.) The criminal mastermind (Trevor Howard) is something of a lunatic, who has already strangled Mature's sister to death just for the hell of it. Anita Ekberg plays Howard's luscious courier; as usual, her "acting" consists to breathing heavily in a low-cut dress. The title Pickup Alley was the invention of Columbia's New York office: The film's original British title was Interpol. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sword and sandal spectacle, a Roman journeys to Asia to oversee the building of an aqueduct. His main job is to replace the former slavemaster. Unlike him, the new overseer tries a gentler approach with the slaves. When he proves that his methods are more effective, the former supervisor gets angry and decides to get his revenge by inciting a revolt amongst the captives. He almost succeeds in that all the Romans but the new overseer are slaughtered. One slave helps the gentle Roman to hide. Meanwhile the chief rebels are captured and killed. This leads the kindly supervisor to be blamed, so he and his newfound friend steal out of the city and team up with another rebel. They all dress up as masked gladiators and then take on the Romans. Eventually, the three avengers successfully foil the plans of the Roman troublemaker just before he makes an attempt to take over the local government. As a reward for their courage, the slaves are freed, and the reputation of the soft-hearted supervisor remains unblemished. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in 1902 in an Irish island castle, actually the same Italian castle masquerading as an English one in 1967's Assassino Senza Volto, Giacomo Rossi Stuart stars as Count Marnak, who invites a traveling theater troupe to stay at the castle as his guests. Marnak soon becomes obsessed with the troupe's beautiful star, Evelyn (Patrizia De Rossi), who looks enough like his deceased wife to be her identical twin, and the two begin a passionate affair. There are several of those affairs going around for the viewer's voyeuristic benefit, including the standard faux-lesbian scene, but they are soon brought to a halt as many of the participants' heads get cut off by an unseen killer. Rumors of vampirism and unintentionally humorous attempts at Gothic atmosphere are quickly forgotten in favor of the usual red herrings and butchery, leading to the unmasking of a deranged psychopath. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In this western, a brave hero helps a man wrongly accused of killing a saloon girl in a small Texas town. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

War and Peace is a commendable attempt to boil down Tolstoy's long, difficult novel into 208 minutes' screen time. In recreating the the social and personal upheavals attending Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia, $6 million was shelled out by coproducers Carlo Ponti, Dino de Laurentiis and Paramount Pictures. Some of the panoramic battle sequences are so expertly handled by second-unit director Mario Soldati that they appear to be Technicolor-and-Vistavision newsreel footage of the actual events. Still, the film falters dramatically, principally because of a lumpy script and King Vidor's surprisingly lustreless direction. In addition, the casting is wildly consistent: for example, while Audrey Hepburn is flawless as Natasha, Henry Fonda is far too "Yankeefied" as the introspective Pierre. Proving too long and unwieldy for most audiences, War and Peace died at the box office; far more successful was the epic, scrupulously faithful 1968 version, filmed in the Soviet Union. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide