Laura Betti Movies
Costar Betti has been onscreen from the '70s. ~ All Movie Guide
Rosso Segno Della Folia, an Italian horror film written, directed and photographed by Mario Bava, is the bloody story of an impotent man who turns to murder to vent his frustrations. The designer and owner of a fashion design business (Stephen Forsyth), frustrated with his own sexual failure, murders the new brides who have modelled his fashions. When he decides to murder his wife, she becomes the ghost who will not leave him alone. Director Bava, who began his career as a cinematographer, while directing mostly low-budget horror films, has become a cult figure among some fans and critics who admire his unique and beautiful visual style and his often very amusing exaggeration of the cliches of the genre. Rosso Segno Della Folia, released in the United States as Hatchet for a Honeymoon is not the best of Mario Bava's work, but this above-average horror film is a must see for those who love the genre and admire stylish horror films. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
Terence Stamp is known only as "The Visitor" in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema. The mysterious stranger insinuates himself into the home of a wealthy Italian family, where he exerts a curious, sensual spirituality over everyone in the household. He then proceeds to seduce everyone in the family (male and female) including the maid, which gives each person some sort of unique epiphany. Because he reveals so little about his innermost thoughts, "The Visitor" becomes all things to all people. What it boils down to is this: Is the enigmatic visitor Christ, or is he the Devil? Matching Terence Stamp's multi-textured performance every step of the way is Laura Betti as the family's maid; Betti, in fact, won the "Best Actress Award" at the 1968 Venice Film Festival. Director Pasolini adapted the screenplay of Teorema from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp, (more)
- 1966
This Dino De Laurentiis production from 1965 is actually an anthology of five different directors' work, each telling their own stories about witches. The five stories are "The Witch Burned Alive," "Civic Sense," "The Earth As Seen From The Moon," "The Girl From Sicily," and "A Night Like Any Other." Silvia Mangano appears in all five, with Clint Eastwood starring in the last featured vignette. Like many gang-directed projects, this film is also plagued by a lack of continuity and by the pretentiousness of the individual directors. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Silvana Mangano, Annie Girardot, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, (more)
- 1960
An attorney and his amorous daughters provide the focus of this drama. The story begins as the lawyer begins searching for his lost teenage daughter and learns that she has run away with an older man. He and his daughter's friend take off after the fugitive lovers. Along the way, the lawyer and the young girl become lovers themselves. Eventually, they discover that she has dumped the older man for a lover her own age; they then find her in bed with said lover and drag her home. There they discover that the lawyer's other daughter too is involved with a much-older man. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriele Ferzetti, Jean Valerie, (more)
