Alida Valli Movies
Born in Italy, Alida Valli (often billed simply as Valli) was the daughter of an Austrian journalist. Possessed of a haunting beauty even at an early age, Valli began her European film career when she was 15, after brief formal training. Though few of her Italian starring films have stood the test of time, she remained popular throughout the early 1940s. When she refused to make any more films for Italy's fascist regime, she had to virtually go into hiding to avoid arrest and execution (ironically, her mother was shot as a collaborator by anti-fascists in 1945). After the war, Valli and her then-husband, composer Oscar de Mejo, came to Hollywood at the invitation of producer David O. Selznick. Signed to a contract, she spent most of her Selznick years on loanouts, starring in such trivialities as Miracle of the Bells (1947). Her best work during this period included her portrayal of an accused murderess in Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), and her unforgettable portrayal of Anna Schmidt (made even more unforgettable by her uncompromising final scene) in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). Her career temporarily stalled by an infamous sex-drug-murder scandal in 1954, Valli returned to the screen in a progression of strong, well-defined character parts, often playing a worldly-wise adventuress of ambivalent sexual tastes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bernardo Bertolucci's 255-minute 1900 was a gargantuan undertaking, requiring the resources of three European countries and a trio of American movie studios. Set in the Italian town of Parma, the film's continuity backtracks from Liberation Day in 1945 to the occasion of composer/patriot Giuseppe Verdi's death in 1901. We follow the lives of two men born on that day in 1901, who grow up to be Alfredo Berlinghieti (Robert De Niro) and Olmo Dalco (Gérard Depardieu). Wealthy Alfredo sinks into dissipation, while poverty-stricken Olmo becomes a firebrand labor leader and communist. After WWI, Alfredo is allowed to peacefully retain his land holdings by playing nice with the burgeoning fascists; Olmo, on the other hand, engages in a long-standing battle against the minions of Mussolini. The two protagonists are reunited when Alfredo returns to Parma to preside over Olmo's trial for "political crimes." Co-star Burt Lancaster is cast as Alfredo's wealthy grandfather, who hates to see the old values buried beneath the social travails of the 20th century. Many American prints of 1900 were shortened to 243 minutes, rendering the story hard to follow at times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
This romantic comedy is set upon Italy's beautiful Lake Como just before WW II erupted in Europe. British, middle-aged, but still-attractive Miss Bentley has come to the lake to visit the family resort. She has not been there since her father died and since her 14-year relationship with a married man broke up. The place has changed since she was there last and there is only one other Britisher there, the single, handsome Major Winslow, a wealthy industrialist. He and she engage in a few rounds of tennis, and begin a tentative romance that is interrupted when flirtatious American-upstart Miss Beaumont shows up and begins toying catlike, with the affections of the vulnerable major. Meanwhile, Miss Bentley finds herself dallying with a handsome young Italian. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, (more)
When a mysterious killer turns a small town's annual Easter celebration into a blood-soaked nightmare, it's up to Detective Maria Delgado (Mira Sorvino) to see that the homicidal maniac is apprehended and justice is served. As the winding and narrow ancient streets quickly fill with penitents, Detective Delgado's ominous task becomes as dangerous as it is seemingly impossible. With the body count quickly mounting and the frenzied killer's murderous antics holding the town in a horrific grip of terror, the pressure placed on Detective Delgado by the frightened townspeople plunges her headlong into a nightmarish confrontation with an unrelenting madman. This film also stars French actor Olivier Martinez. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mira Sorvino, Olivier Martinez, (more)
Alberto De Martino's imitative occult horror film, photographed by Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato), is probably the best of numerous Italian copies of The Exorcist which flooded theaters in the mid-1970s. Carla Gravina stars as Hipolita, a paralyzed young woman with serious mental problems stemming from the death of her mother. Her crisis of faith and the intervention of a well-meaning psychologist lead Hipolita to remember her past life as a witch during the Inquisition. Eventually, Hipolita becomes possessed and starts seducing local men, only to break their necks. Eventually, she sleeps with her brother, makes a local sorceror lick vomit from her hand, and levitates out the window. It takes an exorcism performed by an aging monk (George Coulouris) and the family housekeeper (Alida Valli) to restore order. De Martino and the talented cast manage a few chilling moments despite the predictable storyline, and Gravina is quite good in the lead. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer, (more)
- 1980
In this scary Spanish thriller, a young girl's husband rents her a lovely home just outside of Madrid so she can spend the last three months of her pregnancy in peace and luxury. Unfortunately, just as they arrive at the home, the girl realizes that it is the place where she had secretly had an illegal abortion five years before. The clinic is long-gone, but this doesn't ease the woman's disquiet. Things get even worse when she learns that her upstairs neighbor is the old abortionist's assistant. This woman has gone insane and keeps all the abortion tools and jars full of fetuses in the attic. In the end, the assistant loses all reason and tries to destroy the pregnant girl and the home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Javier Escriva, Silvia Aguila, (more)
- 1939
Several years before she was "discovered" by Hollywood, Alida Valli headed the cast of the minor comedy-fantasy Ballo al Castello (Ball at the Castle). While on her way to dance class, ballerina Greta Larsen (Valli) is given a ride by the handsome Crown Prince Giorgio (Carlo Lombardi). Though it's all very innocent, gossiping tongues begin wagging and before long Greta has been identified as the Prince's latest love. As a result, Greta, who was about to be dropped from her ballet troupe because of her habitual tardiness, is suddenly elevated to prima ballerina status. When she finds out that her promotion has nothing to do with her rather minimal talent, Greta is sorely disappointed, but she determines to keep her job by pretending that she is, indeed, the Prince's lady. Not surprisingly, Greta and Giorgio have fallen in love for real by the time the "End" title (or "Fin" title) flashes on the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alida Valli, Antonio Centa, (more)
- 1957
An overbearing woman is determined to force her two kids to turn her struggling rice plantation into a success. Unfortunately, it is located on the Indochinese coast and is being threatened by rough seas; all that stands between the paddies and the ocean is a small seawall. More trouble comes in the form of a government agent who tries to get them to abandon the land. After falling in love with the beautiful daughter, the agent abandons his mission. But then her brother tires of his mother's constant harping and flees to Bangkok and this leads to more problems. Featuring an international cast, much of the film was shot on location in Thailand. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Perkins, Silvana Mangano, (more)
- 1975
A pair of elderly men, friends for 40 years, find their relationship stressed when they set up housekeeping together in order to save money. Exploring similar ground to that covered in Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple, which spawned a movie and a television series, Ce Cher Victor explores the tragic and dramatic aspects of the story. The two friends, meek, sensitive Anselme (Bernard Blier) and blustering Victor (Jacques Dufilho) are swiftly driven apart by circumstances. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Blier, Jacques Dufilho, (more)
- 1963
Eddie Albert guest stars in this episode, playing--of all things--a middle-aged American farmer with a foreign-accented wife. But this is Combat, not Green Acres: Albert's character, a WW1 veteran named Phil, has been living in France with his French-born wife Marie (played by Alida Valli of The Third Man fame) ever since the Armistice. Unhinged by the ceaseless gunfire of WW2, Phil begins to imagine that he is still fighting The Great War--and so he dons his old uniform, marches into the countryside, and captures Sgt. Saunders (Vince Morrow), whom he believes to be a "Heinie" spy! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Well into his maturity, Salomon Landolt, who is the Bailiff of Griefensee, invites five women with whom he has had satisfying relationships to visit him at his castle. Each one thinks she was the only one invited. Flashbacks detail the nature and quality of his encounters with each woman. Near the end of the film, the Bailiff asks the five women to choose a wife for him: she must either be a mature housewife-type, or a maidservant who is both young and a virgin. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christian Quadflieg, Laura Trotter, (more)
- 1972
This Italian tragedy chronicles the sad love affair between a military inductee and a young woman. The story is set in Italy, during 1938 when Mussolini was having all Jews exiled from Italy. Donatello loves Vernier. Trouble ensues when Vernier refuses to disclose her religious beliefs to the government. She eventually deliberately dives into the Arno River and drowns. The distraught fellow then learns from his mother, that his father, an opposition leader, was executed in prison. Despite the terrible tragedies surrounding him, the brave boy goes into the military. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
Also released as Valley of the Swords, this lugubrious US/Spanish co-production features the usual mid-1960s "tax shelter" international cast. Broderick Crawford plays a despotic 10th century Spanish king who, in cahoots with the invading Moors, has banished handsome Castilian nobleman Spartaco Santoni. With the surreptitious aid of Crawford's daughter Teresa Velasquez, Santoni assembles an army to march against the Moors. In keeping with the 13th century epic poem from which this film was derived ("El Poema de Fernan Gonzales") Santoni's path is smoothed by the celestial intervention of patron saints Milan and Santiago. Among the big names picking up a few tax-free dollars in The Castilian are Cesar Romero, Linda Darnell, Alida Valli and Fernando Rey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1946
Adapted to the stage and screen several times since its inception in the 19th century, Honore de Balzac's romantic tragedy Eugenie Grandet was given another cinematic go-round by Italian filmmaker Mario Soldati in 1946. Alida Valli plays the title character, a naïve young woman who refuses to heed her father's advice in affairs of the heart. Eugenie believes that her beloved cousin Charles (Gualtiero Tumiati) is above reproach, insisting upon sending him money when his father commits suicide. Charles repays Eugenie's love and loyalty by betraying her at the first opportunity, leading to the story's doleful finale. Eugenie Grandet represented Alida Valli's final European production before her Hollywood debut in Hitchcock's The Paradine Case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alida Valli, Gualtiero Tumiati, (more)
French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, Prof. Genessier, who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an automobile accident. With the help of his assistant (Alida Valli), he kidnaps young women, surgically removes their facial features, and attempts to graft their beauty onto his daughter's hideous countenance. This naturally has an adverse effect on the "donors," some of whom commit suicide rather than go through life faceless. Franju's haunting, muted handling of basic horror material is what lifts Eyes Without a Face out of the ordinary and into the realm of near-classic. When the film failed to draw crowds under its original title, however, the distributors decided to exploit it as a two-bit "scare" flick with the new title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, (more)
- 1962
This uneven drama by Argentine director Leopoldo Torre-Nilsson, co-scripted with his wife Beatrice Guido, focuses on the problem of accepting unpleasant truths -- or not. Four women have suffered the loss of their missionary husbands at the hands of some Native Americans along the Amazon. Now the four are making a pilgrimage to the site of the murders to pay homage to their spouses and participate in a reunion of various church groups. A journalist tags along for the story and interviews each woman in turn in order to gather background on their husbands. But when someone shows up who witnessed the deaths, the truth sends one grieving wife over the edge. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Sarfati, Alida Valli, (more)
- 1962
Disorder was a French/Italian co-production, released as Le Desordre in France and Il Disordine in Italy (somebody was in a rut). This leisurely paced modern fable stars Renato Salvatore as a poor young man, struggling to pay for his mother's medical bills. Virtually everyone whom Salvatore approaches for help fails him: An industrialist reneges on a promise, a well-to-do friend laughs in his face, and a priest is defrocked before he can do any good. When the young man is finally able to raise the necessary money, he discovers that the ex-priest has sold all his possessions in order to help Salvatore's mother. Thus it is the film's one Good Samaritan whose life ends up in "disorder." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Renato Salvatori, Louis Jourdan, (more)
- 2000
Acclaimed Italian director Giuseppe Bertolucci draws from such classics as "Oedipus" to "Othello" to fashion this beautifully photographed drama about the relationship between a mother and a son. While actress Sofia (Francesca Neri) rehearses "Othello," she abruptly discovers that the play's director and her long-time lover Bruno Maier (Rade Serbedzija) is gay. The shock leads Sofia to consider suicide, until she discovers an abandoned baby. Soon she adopts the child and names him Bruno. Five years later, Sophia and Bruno are touring with an acting troupe that specializes in performing for school kids. Later, Bruno is 15 and is confused and angry. He longs to know who his father is, and he suspects that Sophia is not his real mother. When tension reaches a head, the two go on a road trip to find his biological mother. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francesca Neri, Rade Serbedzija, (more)
The grim, drab life of a man who labors in a Po Valley sugar refinery in northern Italy provides the center of this black-and-white drama from Michelangelo Antonioni. The worker lives with a married woman and their young daughter. One day, the woman learns that her legal spouse died. The refinery worker immediately proposes, but she spurns him in favor of another. Deeply depressed, the laborer begins to drift aimlessly across the northern wasteland with his daughter in tow. Along the way, he meets many people, including a woman from his past. Despite his many low-key adventures, he is unable to forget his daughter's mother and so returns to find that she lives in a new home with a new child. The story comes to its climax during a demonstration protesting the building of a U.S. airfield where the refinery stands. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, (more)
