Umberto Spadaro Movies

In this Italian bedroom farce, a humble village peasant has managed to remain a bachelor despite the fact that he has fathered numerous illegitimate children. The trouble begins when he finds himself entangled in a fight over water rights. Though others attempt to blame him, the clever fellow manages to come out clean and solve the conflict by fathering two more children. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mistakenly labeled as a neorealist drama in some sources, Seduced and Abandoned is actually a slyly constructed Italian domestic comedy (could anyone have really taken that florid title seriously?) Aldo Puglisi plays a "love 'em and leave 'em" type who impregnates the teen-aged sister (Stefania Sandrelli) of his own fiancee (Paola Biggio). Saro Urzi, the girls' infuriated father, insists that Puglisi break off with the older girl to marry the younger. The police get into the act, threatening to arrests Puglisi for corrupting the morals of a minor. Through some quick thinking on his part, Puglisi manages to get the younger girl to indignantly refuse his hand in marriage. The family is torn asunder by this incident, with darkly comic results. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Farewell to Arms is the second film version of Ernest Hemingway's World War One novel--and also the last film produced by David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind). Rock Hudson plays an American serving in the Italian Army during the "War to End All Wars". Jennifer Jones is his lover, a Red cross nurse. They have a torrid affair, which results in Jones' pregnancy. As the months pass, Hudson and Jones lose contact with one another, and Jones believes that Hudson has forgotten her. But a battle-weary Hudson finally makes it to Switzerland, where Jones is hospitalized. The baby is stillborn, and Jones dies shortly afterward, murmuring that her death is "a dirty trick." Filmed on a simpler scale in 1932 (with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes starring), A Farewell to Arms was blown all out of proportion to "epic" stature for the 1957 remake--so much so that its original director, John Huston, quit the film in disgust. Still, the basic love story is touchingly enacted by Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gerard Philipe stars in the lavishly appointed adventure film Le Meilleure Part. Philipe is cast as a dedicated constructive engineer, presently working on a huge dam project. Faced with a deadline, he must complete his project despite such obstacles as strikes, accidents, and illness. But there's another reason for his haste: the engineer is suffering from a heart ailment and may not have all that much time left on Earth, much less on the job. Le Meilleure Part was directed by Yves Allegret, whose usual preoccupation with nastiness and hypocrisy are put on the back burner this time out. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anna Zaccheo (Silvana Pampanini) is desperate for true love. Alas, Anna is so gorgeous that true love is the last thing most men have on their minds. She manages to get by with the help of several wealthy male friends, until finally she meets the man of her dreams -- a poverty-stricken sailor (Massimo Girotti). Their relationship goes along swimmingly (literally, at one point), until the sailor learns about Anna's checkered past. Just when it looks like a happy ending is on the horizon, a miracle (the sort that happens in movies) comes to pass. Un Marito per Anna Zaccheo is a rare exercise in pure romanticism from Bitter Rice director Giuseppe DeSantis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Michelangelo Antonioni's unique triptych film features three murders, one taking place in Paris, another in Rome, and another in London. All of the perpetrators are affluent youths, each killing for his own dubious motive. In the France segment, a group of adolescents kill for money, even though they don't need it; in the London segment, a poet uncovers a woman's body and tries to profit from the discovery; and in the Italian segment, a student becomes caught up in a smuggling ring, with deadly results. Though each crime is investigated, the guilty are rarely singled out for their actions. I Vinti had a protracted production schedule, due in large part to the director's inability to find funding for such ambitious, resolutely downbeat material. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Cavalleria Rusticana is adapted from the popular one-act play of the same name. Set in rural Sicily, the anecdotal story concerns a deserting soldier named Turiddu (Leonardo Cortese) who returns home to discover that his flirtatious sweetheart Lola (Doris Duranti) has married another. As consolation, Turiddu inaugurates a romance with Santuzza (Isa Pola), but before long he is carrying on an illicit relationship with Lola. The spurned Santuzza informs Lola's husband (Carlo Ninchi) of what's going on behind his back, and the result is a bloody duel. Written by Giovanni Verga, Cavalleria Rusticana had previously been transformed into an opera by Mascagni, whose music is absent from this adaptation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this Italian wartime drama translates to Without a Flag. Set during WW I, the story concentrates on a group of Austrian saboteurs, who wreak havoc on Italian military installations. A secret agent manages to infiltrate the saboteur's headquarters in Vienna, where he appropriates a list of secret plans. The trick now is to get out of the building and back to Italy. To improve the film's box-office chances, a romance between "mortal enemies" Massimo Serato and Vivi Gioi is concocted. Though essentially a thriller, Senza Bandiera is not without its (deliberately) comic moments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Italian-made Angelo would seem to have been inspired by one of the episodes in director Roberto Rosselini's neo-realist classic Paisan (46). The story involves an ex-convict who is released in the years just following World War 2. Coming home, the former convict discovers that his wife has had a child by an American GI. What is more, The GI was black. The rest of the film traces the husband's rejection, and ultimate acceptance, of the ingenuous Little Angelo (played by a child actor billed only as...Little Angelo). Not widely distributed in the US (where it was released in 1957, six years after it was made) Angelo did well enough in Italy to warrant a sequel, Angelo in the Crowd, which follows the young protagonist after he escapes from an orphanage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Fuorilegge was based on the career of the late and unlamented Sicilian bandit chieftain Giuliamo. Ermanno Randi plays the Giuliamo counterpart, here renamed Cosimo. The film unfolds in a sketchy, anecdotal fashion, concluding with a reasonably faithful recreation of the events leading up to the bandit's capture. In the film, Cosimo is killed by the police; in real life, Giuliamo was still alive--but not for long. For box-office insurance, Vittorio Gassman and Umberto Spadaro appear in secondary roles. Though director Aldo Vergano made no secret of sentiments in his previous films, I Fuorilegge is admirably objective, permitting the viewer to decide whether Giuliamo was hero or villain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this Italian melodrama translates to Pact with the Devil. However, His Satanic Majesty does not appear in the film. Rather, this expensively produced period piece is more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, with young love threatened by warring families. In his first Italian film, Hollywood veteran Eduardo Cianelli goes through his usual villainous paces as the scheming father of the male lead (Jacques Francois). The most fascinating performance is rendered by Umberto Spadaro, as the village idiot, or is he? Patto col Diavolo makes the most of the visual dynamics of Italy's mountainous Calabrian region.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A lesser but fascinating example of earthy postwar neorealism, Furia stars Isa Pola as Clara, the randy wife of horse-breeder Oreste (Gino Cervi). Whenever the opportunity presents itself, Clara cheats on her husband in the arms of Oreste's stud-keeper Antonio (Rossano Brazzi). Meanwhile, moronic stablehand Rocco (Umberto Spadaro) lusts after both Clara and Oreste's daughter by a previous marriage, the virginal Marietta (Adriana Bennetti). And meanwhile, Clara and Marietta jealousy vie for the attentions of Oreste, who spends most of his time trying to prove that his wife is an adulterer. At this point, the viewer will prognosticate that one or more of the characters will meet a bad end-and the viewer will be right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide