Nino Manfredi Movies

Miguel Hermoso's La Luz Prodigiosa (Marvelous Light) examines what might have happened if famed Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca had not been executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In Grenada in 1936 Joaquin (Ivan Corvacho Cervantes) delivers a man he decides to call Galapago (Sergio Villanueva) to nuns after Galapago is shot. Fifty years later, Joaquin comes back to Grenada and is conned by Adela (Kiti Manver). Joaquin decides to find Galapago, who is now homeless. Joaquin and Adela soon suspect that Galapago may be Lorca, and each reacts to the situation differently. The music for Marvelous Light was written by the great Ennio Morricone. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Veteran filmmaker Luigi Magni helms this gorgeously-photographed work set during the tumult of mid-19th century Rome. The film focuses on vivacious Cecilla (Lucrezia Lante Della Rovere), innkeeper and creator of renowned spaghetti, and on the Carbonari secret society that agitates against the Vatican for a unified Italy. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In this Italian drama an astrophysicist returns to his birthplace and re-discovers his humanity. Lorenzo needs money. He stops his research in Milan and goes to his former childhood villa in Sicily to sell it. Because workers are renovating it, he must linger longer than he wanted. He begins to remember the slower pace of Sicilians as compared to the hustle of mainland urban Italy. He slowly becomes friends with Salvatore, the head repairman. He lives in an alternative-therapy community for mental patients. His son Agostino is a patient there. Salvatore's simple philosophies have a cathartic effect upon Lorenzo who begins to view the handyman as a father figure. When Lorenzo was younger his own father died. As a result, Lorenzo left Sicily. The research also finds healing in his relationship to Luisa, another patient to whom is drawn. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Alberto's family traditions are quite unusual. Living in Paris with his pregnant wife, he is now expected to return to Rome to pay back every cent that his family spent raising him. Totally without the kind of money expected of him, as Alberto speeds by train toward his family he tries to raise the cash by various desperate means from the other passengers aboard the train so he will not have to face his father empty-handed. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

Nino Manfredi plays Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who carried out the execution of Jesus. He ignores several signs that proclaim that Jesus is the son of God, including the faith of his wife Claudia (Stefania Sandrelli). Pilate is tormented by his actions and later offers his life to Roman Emperor Tiberius in exchange for an end to the persecution of the Jews. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In one popular Spanish-English dictionary, "picaro" is defined as "roguish; scheming, tricky; low, vile; mischievous," and when used as a noun it refers to a rogue, a schemer. Yet the word also harkens to the kinds of novels (picaresque) that came out of Spain in the 17th century, including Don Quixote, stories that recounted the wanderings of vagabonds of one kind or another. This film by the esteemed director Mario Monicelli is set in the 17th century and concerns the picaresque adventures of two amusing "picaros." Lazarillo and Guzman (Enrico Montesano and Giancarlo Giannini) first met when they were slaves rowing on a prison-galley ship, and they strike up a friendship based on their having endured similarly horrific childhoods. While escaping from the slave ship during a mutiny (they chose the wrong side) they narrowly escape drowning and are separated. Guzman becomes an impoverished Baron's (Vittorio Gassman) personal servant and puts his thieving ways to good use in that capacity, while Lazarillo joins an acting troupe. When they meet again, they immediately decide to pull off a con-job they call "the cannoli trick." ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this silly Italian comedy, a trio of robbers burst into an Italian restaurant and place its five employees in a storage room to hold them hostage. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A situation that once (believe it or not) served as the premise for a Dick Van Dyke Show is taken several steps farther in the Italian Nudo di Donna. Nino Manfredi plays a prudish husband who is appalled to discover that his wife once posed nude for a painting. His shock is intensified when word gets around that the artist's model was a prostitute. The rest of the film consists of Manfredi's hilariously frantic efforts to get to the bottom of things (as it were). Nude di Donna was released in the US with the cumbersome title Portrait of a Woman, Nude. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Nothing in his background has given Saso Iovine (Nino Manfredi) any preparation for the sticky situations he encounters when he is hired by the crooked building contractor Don Michele to find his daughter Giulia, and some important (and legally damaging) documents she stole from him before running off with her boyfriend. He immediately stumbles onto a nest of corpses and a Neapolitan crime rivalry while being pursued by the police and harassed by his half-loony girlfriend. Along the way, practically everyone involved in the case becomes a corpse for him to stumble over moments ahead of the police's arrival. He does, however, become somewhat friendly with the police commissioner Assenza (Ugo Tognazzi), which just barely suffices to keep his neck out of the noose. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this episodic anthology, written and directed by assorted Italian filmmakers, the political and social aspects of Italian life are chronicled. In one satirical episode, The Bomb, a bogus bomb threat at a police headquarters gradually balloons into a real terrorist plot culminating with the bombing of the police commissioner. Other episodes satirize the CIA, Christmas in Naples and pompous public officials. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Three films are gathered here under one title, and the general theme of sexual encounters unites them. In "Superman and Lady Godiva," a man working as a bouncer at an Amsterdam sex show is forced to bring his jealous wife to his workplace. She is hired as a performer and becomes a "star," much to his chagrin. The second episode (title not given) concerns a sexual encounter between an Italian father and his daughter's Swedish friend. In the final episode, "The Elevator," a high-ranking priest (a monsignor) gets stuck in an elevator with a ravishingly beautiful woman on a summer day which, in Italy, means that practically no one is in the city to rescue them. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Stefania Sandrelli, a bit player in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, stars in the deliberately Felliniesque comedy We All Loved Each Other So Much. Sandrelli plays the longtime object of three friends' affections. The film traces the interrelationships of those friends-Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi and Satta Flores-over a period of thirty years, beginning with their involvement in the wartime Resistance. In addition to freely quoting from La Dolce Vita, director Ettore Scola also calculatedly evokes memories of Fellini's I Vitteloni. As a bonus, the film offers affectionate homages to several other neorealist filmmakers, including Rossellini and de Sica. We All Loved Each Other So Much was originally released as C'erevamo tanto amati. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi