Monica Vitti Movies

Survey of the history of Italian cinema, featuring clips from such classics as "Open City," "8-1/2," and "Seven Beauties," and interviews with illustrious stars and filmmakers, including Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Toto, Monica Vitti, Anna Magnani, Vittorio DeSica, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Roberto Rossellini. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi

This is an off-beat story about a ménage à trois that is really a marriage between the traditional two, with one a little schizoid, adding up to three. Laura (Monica Vitti) has been married for 22 years to Giovanni (Jean Luc Bideau) and now his behavior seems to imply that she has a competitor whose name is Veronica. Laura is upset until she realizes that Veronica is about as real as the Easter bunny, and so she gets her husband into a clinic for treatment, and when he is released, Laura has to go along with the fake "Veronica," even setting the table for three instead of two. Unwilling to end her marriage because her husband his this unusual problem, Laura keeps on catering to his fantasy, hoping he will come out of it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this light comedy based on a play by Aldo de Benedetti from the 1950s, Princess Lucia (Monica Vitti) is miffed that her husband, Prince Giulio (Philippe Leroy is single-mindedly focused on his race horses to the point that he is ignoring her. She decides to find out if he really does love her by convincing her bodyguard to pose as her lover - if her husband gets jealous, then he must care a little anyway. This seems like a fine plan until her bodyguard's girlfriend shows up unexpectedly, creating a few tight situations. Prince Giulio finally sees green through his equine-induced haze, and now all the Princess has to do is straighten out any misunderstandings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

One of director Michelangelo Antonioni's more obscure works from the 1980s, this psychological period piece reunites the filmmaker with one of his favorite performers, Monica Vitti. Shot on video and based upon the play The Eagle Has Two Heads (Jean Cocteau made his own film version of the work in 1947), the film casts Vitti as a queen who squares off against an anarchist poet who has come to her castle to kill her. Due to his remarkable resemblance to the long-dead king of the land, the queen falls in love with the dissident. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

In this standard but toned-down sex comedy, seven different vignettes starring female leads like Monica Vitti, Ursula Andress, Laura Antonelli, and Sylvia Kristel portray various questionable exploits headed by women with minds of their own. Antonelli, for example, plays a dynamic businesswoman who picks up a young orchestra conductor and both yearn to spend some quality time together -- but to no avail. As the patient conductor follows her around like a footnote on a text, she continues to finish up dealings with other businessmen, lawyers, and various agents while her romantic interlude seems to be left cooling on the back burner somewhere. In another vignette, Monica Vitti and Michele Placido are in competition (and disguises), trying to con the pricey necklace off an unsuspecting woman at a casino. Other vignettes involve some nudity, but viewers looking for X-rated material will have to look elsewhere -- this sex comedy has more emphasis on the comedic than the lustful side of life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A biker chick and her housewife friend go out & about. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

The English-language title for the Italian L'Anatra All'arancia was Duck in Orange Sauce. Though Ugo (Ugo Tognazzi) is comfortably married to Lisa (Monica Vitti), he nonetheless takes up with pretty (and fetchingly underdressed) American Patty (Barbara Bouchet). In retalitaiton, Lisa begins an affair with French count Jean Claude (John Richardson), arousing Ugo's jealousy. At his request, the four members of this romantic quadrangle repair to a summer house to come to a "civilized understanding"--which erupts into something out of the Keystone Kops. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of Luis Buñuel's most episodic films, The Phantom of Liberty focuses on no one particular narrative. In the beginning, a man sells postcards of French tourist attractions, calling them "pornographic." A sniper in Montparnasse is hailed as a hero for killing passersby. A "missing" child helps the police fill out the report on her. A group of monks play poker, using religious medallions as chips, and in the most infamous sequence, a formally dressed social group gathers at toilets around a table, occasionally excusing themselves to go into little stalls in a private room to eat. ~ John Voorhees, Rovi

Teresa the Thief is a true story set during World War II. The eponymous Teresa, played by Monica Vitti, is an Italian woman who is determined to survive by any means. Thievery not only becomes a way of life for Teresa, but her claim to fame as well. Stefano Satto Flores and Isa Danieli costar in this Italian-made drama, originally released as Teresa la Ladra. Barely released theatrically in the US, the film became something of a perennial on cable TV. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This highly symbolic and enigmatic political drama by Hungarian director Miklos Jancso was produced by a consortium from Italy, France and West Germany. This film is considered to be an homage to Antonioni as it uses his favorite leading actress (Monica Vitti) and his cameraman Carlo di Palma. This film was made during a time when Jancso was not allowed to make films in his native Hungary. In the middle of the crowd, while covering an Italian political protest by leftists, The Journalist (Monica Vitti), a pacifist, finds herself surrounded by a quite different group of people who jostle her, remove her recording equipment from her and set her car on fire. She complains to the police about this. However, when the police bring one of the young men before her for her to identify him, she says he is not one of her attackers. This leads to her having a romantic relationship with the young man. The group, and the young man, are young Italian neo-fascists, and the young man has been given the job of assassinating a leftist. He is too gentle to do this, and his group kills him right before The Journalist's eyes. She goes to the police again, but they begin to believe that she is insane, even when she is forced to kill her boyfriend's assailants right there in the police station. She is formally declared mad, and is taken off. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This dark comedy finds Lucie (Monica Vitti) planning to kill her boyfriend (Maurice Ronet), and then herself, after discovering that he has cheated her out of her inheritance and left her penniless. She decides to binge on champagne and caviar before committing suicide, but is rendered intoxicated and daydreams. Lucie later meets a man (Robert Hussein), and reveals to him her intentions to end it all. He desperately tries to locate her as she continues to binge while waiting for her ex-boyfriend. Soon she decides no man is worth dying over and she later meets the stranger who had cared about her condition in her depressed state of mind. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi