Raf Vallone Movies

Though not a giallo film in the strictest sense, this crime/revenge film merits attention by fans for its genre cast and an unusual approach to familiar themes. Raf Vallone plays anguished father Avanzio Berzaghi, whose 25-year old daughter Donatella has been kidnapped. Donatella has the mind of a toddler, and her beauty and agreeable naivete make her a perfect choice for Milan's seedy prostitution racket. Frank Wolff is a dedicated Inspector with bad sinuses who shakes down a sleazy pimp and a desperate black prostitute (Beryl Cunningham of The Snake God), as well as visiting scores of local brothels for clues. Tragically, he is too late, and Donatella's corpse is found in a field, still smoking from having been burned alive. Wolff redoubles his efforts, but it is Vallone, using nothing more than his daughter's teddy-bear and a father's lust for justice, who finally tracks down the killers. His laundromat vengeance is brutal, but unsatisfying, leaving him a broken man. Director Duccio Tessari, best known for westerns and a memorable giallo called The Blood-Stained Butterfly, imbues this story with a great deal more humanity than is typical for the genre. The plot, adapted from G. Scerbanenco's novel The Milanese Kill on Saturday, has its problems, but Tessari's focus on character minimizes the inconsistencies, presenting a gritty, powerful portrait of a dehumanizing urban Hell. This neglected gem suffers only from Gianni Ferrio's inexplicably bouncy music, but is otherwise a winner all the way. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

The quintessential British caper film of the 1960s, The Italian Job is a flashy, fast romp that chases a team of career criminals throughout one of the biggest international gold heists in history. Michael Caine is Charlie Croker, a stylish robber and skirt-chaser just out of British prison. Shunning rehabilitation for recidivism, Croker takes over "The Italian Job," a complicated plan to hijack gold bullion from Italy -- right from underneath the noses of the Italian Police and the Mafia. The job, whose original mastermind was murdered, clearly requires the sponsorship of a richer, more established criminal than Croker. He turns to the auspices of the eccentric Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward in his last film role), a suave, regal, incarcerated English crime boss with a peculiar fascination with the Queen. Bridger provides Croker with a quirky group of Britain's most infamous computer hackers (including a lascivious Benny Hill), bank robbers, hijackers, and getaway drivers -- the ex-con is soon well on his way to relieving Italy of the gold. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

The Spanish Thousand and One Nights brings a new slant to an old story. Several Arabian Nights legends are blended together into a single coherent continuity. Evidently certain that this sort of stuff was too hokey to take seriously, the producers handle the material with tongue firmly in cheek. Jeff Cooper plays the ingenuous hero Oman, while the villainy is in the capable hands of Raf Vallone. And, yes, there are plenty of undulating harem girls and veiled princesses; foremost among these is the dazzling Luciana Paluzzi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Henry Hathaway's film is based on a character from Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers, who, in turn, based it on cowboy actor Ken Maynard. Set in the West of the 1890s, the film opens with the torture and murder of the parents of Max Sand (Steve McQueen) by a trio of gunslingers seemingly motivated by their hostility toward the mixed nature of the marriage, since the wife is a Native American. Swearing revenge, the young cowhand enlists the help of itinerant gunsmith Jonas Cord Brian Keith, who teaches him how to shoot while counseling against revenge. Nonetheless, Sand doggedly scours one town after the other before finally running up against one of the murderers, Jesse Coe (Martin Landau). He finally kills Coe in a vicious knife fight, but is severely wounded himself and has to be nursed back to health by Neesa (Janet Margolin), a young Kiowa woman. He next heads for Louisiana where another of the murderous trio, Bill Bowdre (Arthur Kennedy), is serving a prison sentence in a remote swamp. In order to get close to the man, Sand stages a robbery, and is soon among the prison inmates. This was the only film on which McQueen worked with Landau, the only other person admitted to the Actor's Studio out of thousands of applicants in 1957. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

Of the two competing Jean Harlow biopics released in 1965, producer Joseph E. Levine's Harlow is the more slickly professional, though neither film is exactly a cinematic landmark. Carroll Baker plays 1930s "platinum blonde" Jean Harlow, who, in keeping with the portrait painted by biographer Irving Schulman and Arthur Landau (upon whose book this film is based) was a forlorn waif tossed around like a football by the predatory males of wicked old Hollywood. Prodded by a hellish stage mother (Angela Lansbury) and an implicitly incestuous stepfather (Raf Vallone), Harlow rises to the pinnacle of movie stardom but never finds true happiness. The wedding-night revelation that her new husband, producer Paul Bern (Peter Lawford), is impotent is just another devastating blow for the poor girl. After all she goes through in the film, Harlow's premature death at age 26 is almost a relief. The only person who truly, deeply, sincerely cares about her is her lovable agent Arthur Landau (played by lovable Red Buttons) who, it will be remembered, co-authored the original Harlow book. Movie buffs will derive some perverse pleasure by the script's many distortions of the facts. Whatever its shortcomings, Harlow posted a huge profit for Joe Levine and Paramount Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tom Tryon plays the title role in this Otto Preminger version of the Henry Morton Robinson novel. In his matriculation from Monsignor to the College of Cardinals, Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) must undergo several grueling life experiences: standing up to bigots in Georgia, defying Nazis in Austria, and so on. The film boasts cameo appearances by Dorothy Gish, Cecil Kellaway, John Saxon, John Huston, Robert Morse, Burgess Meredith, Raf Vallone, Ossie Davis. Incidentally, Tryon eventually quit acting and became a popular novelist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inspired by Euripedes' tragedy Hippolytus and set in modern times, this allegorical tale centers on the love triangle between a fabulously wealthy Greek shipping magnate, his lonely second wife, and his first-born son. The affair between the wife and her stepson begins soon after she arrives in London to bring him back to Greece so her husband can teach him about shipping and he can marry another tycoon's daughter to cement a new alliance. Though the son quickly falls in love with his beautiful stepmother, he cannot overcome his crushing guilt at having betrayed his father. When the wife learns of her husband's planned betrothal of his son, she becomes enraged and confesses her affair. Great tragedy follows as her husband beats his son senseless while verbally battering the wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Normally, an actor or actress in a foreign-language film was not the ideal candidate for an Academy Award, inasmuch as his or her English-language "performance" was often dubbed in by an anonymous third party. Such was not the case of Sophia Loren in Two Women (La Ciociara), who did her own English dubbing. Adapted by director Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini from the novel by Alberto Moravia, Two Women is the semi-neorealist account of widow Cesira (Loren) and her teenaged daughter, Rosetta (Eleanora Brown), as they struggle to survive in war-ravaged Italy. A conventional romantic triangle between mother, daughter, and Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo), is barely under way when the war rears its ugly head once more. Seeking shelter in a bombed-out church, Cesira and Rosetta are attacked and raped -- a horrifying sequence, capped by a freeze-frame close-up of Rosetta, her face a taut mask of terror (this image was enough to prompt a virulent "anti-smut" editorial in The Saturday Evening Post). Once they've recovered from this appalling experience, mother and daughter are offered a ride back to Rome by friendly truck driver Florindo (Renato Salvatori). Though Cesira had hoped to keep her daughter from compromising herself as a means of survival, she is crushed to discover that Rosetta has given herself to the truck driver in exchange for a pair of stockings. When Cesira and Rosetta finally reconcile, it is a grievous occasion, mourning the death of their mutual love, Michele. A last-minute replacement for Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren brought hitherto untapped depths of emotion to her performance in Two Women; she later stated that she was utilizing "sensory recall," dredging up memories of her own wartime experiences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Le Piege (The Trap) top-bills Raf Vallone as a likeable fugitive from justice. Protected from arrest by big-hearted waitress Magali Noel, Vallone manages to elude the law long enough to begin a legit job as a truckdriver. When Noel's boss learns the truth about Vallone's past, he blackmails the couple to ensure his silence. Any character who thinks he can get away with extortion in a film noir of this nature all but has "MURDER VICTIM" tattooed on his forehead. Compactly produced and consummately acted, Le Piege is a satisfying second-echelon thriller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two of Spain's leading film personalities - star Carmen Sevila and director Juan Antonio Bardem - pool their talents for La Venganza. The Steinback-like scenario finds Sevila playing the sister of Raf Vallone, a recently released convict. Convinced that one of a group of migrant workers betrayed her brother to the authorities, Sevila insists that Vallone seek revenge. Complications begin piling up when the girl falls in love with the so-called informer (Jorge Mistral). La Venganza was one of Spain's entries in the Cannes Film Festival of 1958. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide