Leopoldo Trieste Movies
Garnering an impressive 160 film credits over the course of his enduring career, actor/writer Leopoldo Trieste worked with such noted directors as Federico Fellini (The White Sheik [1952]) and Roberto Rossellini (The Young and the Passionate [1952]) before coming to the attention of the international film community with such efforts as Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974) and Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose (1986). Born in Reggio Calabria, Italy, in 1917, Trieste began his career as a stage performer. Co-writing (as well as acting in) his first film following World War II, Love Prelude, proved a moderate success, though it wasn't until Fellini cast him in The White Sheik that his career truly took off. Subsequently scripting films and gaining a reputation as a respected playwright, Trieste continued to alternate between stage and screen in the following years, even attempting a stint at directing 1950's Città di Notte (City at Night) and 1960's Il Peccato Degli Anni Verdi. Though both films proved disappointing failures, Trieste pushed on and continued to find success in front of the camera. The veteran actor was the recipient of a Nastro d'Argento award for his role in The Star Maker (1995). In January of 2003, Leopoldo Trieste died of cardiac arrest in Rome, Italy. He was 85. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1953
Leopoldo Trieste's stage play Cronaca was the basis for the Italian drama Febbre di Vivere (Eager to Live). Though virtually every character in the film is tenuously connected with Italian high society, many of them can be classified as "low lifes." And none is lower than two-bit bookie Massico (Massimo Serato) who breaks at least three female hearts in the course of events. Coasting by on his charm, Massico manages to secure undying loyalty from all his women, even after casting them aside. But when he adds murder to his repertoire, his luck runs out. Marcello Mastrioanni is seen in a surprisingly passive role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Massimo Serato, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
Italian maestro Federico Fellini's first international success is a nakedly autobiographical film that bears many of the formal and thematic concerns that recur throughout his work. Set in the director's hometown of Rimini, I Vitelloni follows the lives of five young vitelloni, or layabouts, who while away their listless days in their small seaside village. Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), the leader of the pack, marries his sweetheart, but finds himself constantly distracted by other women. Meanwhile, would-be playwright Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste) continues work on his dreary plays, dreaming of staging them one day. Clownish Alberto (Alberto Sordi) still lives at home with his mother and sister, Olga (Claude Farell), while boasting of preserving the family honor by watching over her. While the movie seems to pay little attention to Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini) and Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi), the latter eventually emerges as its key character, plainly serving as Fellini's alter ego. Stuck in adolescence, the five friends stumble into various misadventures, as they seek to spice up their uneventful provincial lives. Ultimately, one of them breaks free from their self-imposed paralysis and moves on, leading to one of the most poignant farewell sequences in film history. A hit in Italy upon its release, I Vitelloni secured Fellini's reputation as an up-and-coming talent, while also introducing its title into Italian vernacular. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Franco Interlenghi, (more)
- 1953
This Italian crime melodrama may remind some viewers of the methodical American TV series Dragnet. In trailing a gang of counterfeiters, the authorities follow the trail of clues to a small town. Here the creation of "funny money" is the principal industry --and the job is made easier because the counterfeiters have been able to get their hands on the same type of paper used for legal tender. Police inspector Moroni (Fosco Giachetti) continues to dog the criminals' trail to Naples, where the film comes to a rousing conclusion. A few arbitrarily inserted dance sequences involving a sexy young girl were added to hype the film's box-office appeal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fosco Giachetti, Doris Duranti, (more)
The White Sheik (Lo Sceicco Bianco), Fellini's first solo flight as director, is a gentle lampoon of the idolatry heaped upon movie stars. An impressionable young bride, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) accompanies her husband Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) on a dull honeymoon, full of meetings with family members and the papal father. Bovo fantasizes over matinee idol Fernando Rivoli, AKA The White Sheik (Alberto Sordi), the hero of a photo strip comic. She repeatedly drifts away from her husband and back, in periodic attempts to find The Sheik, ultimately repairing to the location site where Sordi's latest film, The White Shiek, is in production. Her inevitable disillusionment with the vainglorious Sordi is intercut with her husband's comic (and desperate) attempts to explain his wife's absences at family gatherings to his disgruntled relatives. After a comically inept suicide attempt, Bovo and Trieste are reunited. Featured in the cast is Fellini's wife Giuletta Masina as a prostitute named Cabiria, who'd be given a vehicle of her own, Nights of Cabiria, in 1955. Based on "an idea" by Michelangelo Antonioni, The White Sheik was the main inspiration for Gene Wilder's The World's Greatest Lover (1977). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Brunella Bovo, (more)
- 1949
The Italian The Sky is Red (Il Cielo e Rosso) details the romantic adventures of two postwar couples. Despite being confined to a quarantined zone (quarantined for political, rather than health reasons), love finds a way. The neorealistic elements are passable, but what really "sold" this film abroad was its graphic-for-its-times sexual content. The cast is headed by Jacques Sernas and Marina Berti, another step in the right direction box office-wise. One of the young romeos is played by Mischa Auer Jr., son of the famed Russian comic actor. Among the many screenwriters of The Sky is Red is frequent De Sica and Fellini collaborator Cesare Zavattini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marina Berti, Jacques Sernas, (more)
- 1948
Preludio D'Amore (Love Prelude) is a minor Italian romantic drama with an impressive cast. The story, involving a romance between two budding juvenile delinquents, is nothing special. Nor is the perfunctory direction by workhorse Giovanni Paolucci. What really makes this thing percolate are its stars, including veteran "action" hero Massimo Girotti, frequent Roberto Rosselini collaborator Maria Michi, Hollywood-bound ingenue Marina Berti, and comparative newcomer Vittorio Gassman. The film was put together by Albatros Productions, one of the most ill-named companies in the history of the cinema. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Marina Berti, (more)
