Piero De Bernardi Movies

Few American film enthusiasts were even aware that anyone made westerns in Italy before Sergio Leone's breakthrough film, 1964's Per un Pugno di Dollari (aka A Fistful Of Dollars), made Clint Eastwood a worldwide star and introduced audiences to the forbidding beauty and troubling morality of Leone's unique vision of the American West. A Fistful of Dollars was an international hit, as were its follow ups Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (aka For A Few Dollars More) and Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (aka The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), and Leone's striking visual sense and complex storytelling established him as one of the masters of genre filmmaking, though in later years his ambition would outstrip his ability to bring his projects to the screen. Sergio Leone: Il mio modo di vedere le cose (aka Sergio Leone: The Way I See Things) is a documentary which takes a loving look at the highlights of Leone's career in cinema, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how several of his best films were made through interviews with actors and technicians who collaborated with him as well as archival footage of Leone discussing his pictures. Sergio Leone: The Way I See Things received its American premiere at the 2006 Cinequest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Italian actor/director Carlo Verdone teams up with screenwriter Piero De Bernardi for the ensemble comedy Ma Che Colpa Abbiamo Noi? (What Fault is it of Ours?). The story follows eight people in a therapy group headed by an elderly psychotherapist who dies of a heart attack during one of their sessions. The group includes main character Gegé (Verdone) surrounded by a gay intellectual (Max Amato), an aspiring mother (Margherita Buy), an unfaithful husband (Antonio Catania), an anorexic student (Anita Caprioli), a sensitive young man (Stefano Pesce), a fiftysomething blonde (Lucia Sardo), and a conservative musician (Luciano Gubinelli). The group meets again at the therapist's funeral and ends up staying at an inn together for the weekend. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Carlo Verdone directed this Italian comedy in which the refers to a capercaillie, a European grouse distinctive for its chest-puffing vanity. The story opens in an Arab country where Islamic fundamentalists condemn Armando Feroci (Verdone) to death, followed by a flashback to 17 years earlier when the womanizing Feroci tooled about in his red convertible, tossing out lewd lines to women -- but eventually going too far by accosting a veiled Arab woman from a Red Cross missionary jeep. In Feroci's life of many misadventures, he is seen as a real estate agent getting his future wife (Ines Nobili) to purchase a condemned property; as an Elvis Presley fan claiming to be Elvis' biological son; as a quiz-show contestant; as a politician; and as an irresponsible parent. Filmed in Rome and the Tunisian desert. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Italian political satire from filmmaker Lina Wertmuller will be most enjoyable for those well-grounded in Italian politics. Covering the late March through April general elections of 1994 in which right-wing conservatives routed the incumbent leftists. This is particularly upsetting for Tunin, a mechanic with a firm belief in communism. Fearing that his party is about to lose, he journeys to a northern village to stir up trouble. He isn't there long before he is arguing with a beautiful hairdresser. Their debate is fiery as is his growing and impossible-to-disguise passion for her. She too is intrigued with him, but their disparate ideologies threaten to keep them apart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Italian filmmaker Carlo Verdone both directed and starred in this lightweight comedy comprised of three segments, each dealing with the experiences of three grooms embarking upon disastrous honeymoons. In the first a very proper, fastidious and socially conscious doctor marries a nervous wreck of a girl who only married him because she was expected to; soon after their ceremony, he takes her to the tomb of his first wife where he proceeds to compare them. In the second, a vulgar boor and his tawdry wife embark upon their wedding night with the intent of breaking records for marathon and inventive lovemaking. In the third, an innocent, meek fellow does his best to please his bride who is disappointed by her new husband. Things go awry from the start when the cleric stretches out their ceremony to a nearly unbearable length. Later during their first night together, his gravely ill father's nurse quits and her sister tries to kill herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This Italian comedy, set in WW II, follows the road trip of a troupe of traveling boxers upon the roads of Tuscany. The story begins in August 1944 after Italy has been freed by the Allies. Dieci is a boxer living in Florence. He got his name (which means "Ten") because of his proclivity for being easily knocked out. Conditions in Florence are hard; Dieci decides to put together a travelling troupe to help make some money, and find food. Unfortunately no one in his troupe is a boxer. Followed by a lost dog, the group sets off in a broken down, brakeless bus. They are joined by an African-American army deserter and a Shaved Head woman who lost her hair after being caught consorting with a German. They are finally joined by Wilma who seeks revenge upon the partisan who did her wrong. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ugo Fantozzi (Paolo Villagio) is a retired accountant who is stunningly ugly, and his ability to suffer having even the most innocent situations turn into unqualified disasters has made his name an Italian byword for a really luckless sad-sack. This is the seventh of the popular comedies depicting his adventures, and by rights should be the last. In it, he goes on a skiing weekend and finally gets his mitts on Signorina Silvani, the hard-bitten but sexy woman who tantalized him all during his working life. The story continues, showing the demise of his fellow office workers and then his own, but when he winds up in a Buddhist heaven instead of a Catholic one (typical sour luck, that) it begins to look as though he might get more chances to go through the whole darn thing again and again... ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Their father (Barry Morse) is a wealthy, world-renowned painter, and he brought the three siblings (two sons and a daughter) up in lavish style. The three children have had a falling out over the years, as much due to their differing lifestyles as anything else. Gregorio (Carlo Verdone) is a radio disk jockey, freewheeling and not very conventional. Vanni (Sergio Rubini) is a very stiff-necked concert pianist, the soul of propriety. Finally, Livia (Francesca Neri) is used to being the center of attention and the toast of all men's eyes - which she hardly is for her brothers. In this domestic comedy, when these three individualist's father goes missing, they unite to find him and begin to work out their differences in a more amicable way than before. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This wickedly funny Italian comedy centers upon a lascivious, fun-loving old uncle who hands out blood-test certificates to potential lovers to prove that he is "clean" and wreaks all sorts of havoc when he must temporarily stay with his wealthy but emotionally constipated nephew. At first the nephew is appalled by his uncle's lust for wild-living, but in time he becomes utterly fascinated by the old man. Soon the previously staid young man finds himself drawn into his uncle's crazy life-style and begins learning the value of living life to the fullest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

For well over twenty years at the time of this film's release in 1988, the adventures of the hapless innocent Ugo Fantozzi (Paolo Villagio) have amused Italian audiences. In this latest installment of the Fantozzi series, he's about to retire from his job working in the hellish basement of a mortuary company. At a retirement ceremony he receives the obligatory gold watch, which, with his usual luck, has his name misspelled in the engraving. Energetic and capable of getting into more trouble in a few minutes than most of us manage in a whole lifetime, retirement is a daunting prospect for him. It proves to be an even more odious challenge to his wife Pina (Milena Vukotic), who soon takes a second job in order to pay her boss to hire Fantozzi for a make-believe job just to get him out of the house. When this fails, even more desperate measures are called for. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide