Marcello Pagliero Movies
London-born Italian filmmaker Marcello Pagliero was raised in Italy and started out as a critic for art and literature after graduating from law school. He began his film career in the late '30s dubbing English-language films into Italian. In 1941, Pagliero began co-writing screenplays and in 1943 became a director. In 1945 he became an internationally acclaimed actor when he played Manfredi in Rossellini's Open City. Moving to France in 1947, Pagliero continued to work as an actor and director, infrequently returning to Italy to work. He retired from feature films after 1960 but continued to work as both director and actor in French television. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1968
The harsh life of a troubled young man provides the basis of this grim French tragedy that begins when the fellow stops into a shop to buy a pack of the title cigarettes. There he meets a pretty shop girl with whom he falls in love and eventually marries. It was a foolish choice, for the two cannot get along and constantly fight. Things get worse when the husband resumes his criminal activities and gets caught. The two are about to divorce when the woman gets pregnant. The time comes for their baby to be born and while sitting in the waiting room, the husband reflects upon his past activities, which are revealed via flashback. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Annie Girardot, (more)
- 1965
In this crime drama, an American fugitive in France is pursued by two thugs for two different reasons. One of the pursuers has been engaged by a large, corrupt construction company that wants the fugitive killed to prevent him from giving damaging testimony. The other stalker has more personal reasons for killing him. When the construction company is acquitted, the assassin is told to protect the fugitive from the other man. A three-way gun battle ensues and all of the men are fatally shot. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Silva, Jack Klugman, (more)
- 1963
This drama is set in Cambodia and centers upon an orphaned French girl who was raised by a native family after they found her wandering alone in the forest. The young woman is preparing to marry her foster brother, but then the government informs her that her real brother has been searching for her for many years. She then learns that she was orphaned in 1943 during a Japanese attack on her family's plantation. At first her brother only wants to have her love him as a brother, but then a darker passion flares and the girl becomes frightened. Fortunately, her fiance comes to her aid. They flee to the woods with the enraged brother driving behind them. He drives too fast and his car skids off the road and explodes in a great fireball. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
A French video crew trek across some scenic spots in the USSR in this routine combination travelogue-drama. Good documentary footage on various sites has been spliced with the storyline about one man in the film crew who is looking for an old buddy. This gives some excuse to roam far and wide, helped further by another search for a woman who has run away from someone in the crew because of a lover's misunderstanding. This traveling melodrama is directed by Marcel Pagliero. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tatiana Samoilova, Leon Zitrone, (more)
- 1960
Talented actress and writer Simone Signoret carries this drama about an emotionally deteriorating woman, Roberta, who tries everything she can to win back the affection and interest of her husband, Milan (Reginald Kernan). Milan is a moody race-car driver who is now retired, living with Roberta, married for ten years, and intent on writing his memoirs. Too much togetherness has the couple sniping at each other, so when an attractive young woman joins them for awhile, Roberta eventually sees her as a chance to improve her marriage. Already declining in heavy bouts with the bottle, Roberta thinks that the young woman could awaken her husband's interest in intimacy -- and therefore in Roberta herself. As might be expected, this convoluted and risky plan backfires in the worst possible way. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Signoret, Reginald Kernan, (more)
- 1954
This film is comprised of three vignettes focusing upon women and war. The first episode, set in WW II, chronicles the sad journey of an American woman who goes to Italy to bring her husband's body home. In Italy she makes a heart-wrenching discovery: he had been living with an Italian family and had impregnated their daughter and sees the child. The second story chronicles the abandonment of Joan of Arc, by her king and her soldiers. The third episode is a humorous adaptation of "Lysistrata," the Greek play where Athenian wives refused to sleep with their husbands until they stopped making war. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1954
Originally a character in a Gaston Leroux novel, Cheri-Bibi was transformed into a popular French comic-strip character in the 1930s. The character was also featured in two films, the second of which was in 1955. Jean Richard plays the title character, a born loser who undergoes plastic surgery in order to resemble his rival for the hand of Lea Padovini. Once he emerges from the bandages, Cheri-Bibi is plunged into a series of melodramatic misadventures. Though never "camp" in its tone, Cheri-Bibi is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, having fun with its source material rather than poking fun at it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Richard, Raymond Bussières, (more)
- 1952
Barbara Laage plays the title role in the ironic French drama The Respectful Prostitute. No one considers Lizzie (Ms. Laage) particularly respectful until one of her clients is accused of a crime. Summoned to court, Lizzie perjures herself, hoping to become socially respectable-and in so doing, she betrays her black lover. In the end, Lizzie has nothing to show for her "grand gesture". Originally titled La Putain Respecteuse, the film was adapted from a 1946 play by Jean-Paul Sartre. Now all but forgotten, The Respectful Prostitute was a runner-up in the "best picture" category at the 1952 Venice Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Laage, Ivan Desny, (more)
- 1950
Actor/writer/director Marcello Pagliero, one of the leading lights of the Italian neorealist movement, was the guiding force behind the French production Les Amants de Brasmart (The Lovers of Brasmart) Frank Villard heads the cast as Jean, a young barge captain whose livelihood is threatened by his avaricious uncle. When not defending himself against his uncle's brutish henchmen, Jean conducts a tender romance with Monique (Nicole Courcel). The best scenes take place on the Seine River, especially a thrill-packed barge race. Cinematographer Roger Hubert manages to bring a realistic veneer to even the most melodramatic plot twists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicole Courcel, Frank Villard, (more)
- 1949
Un Homme Marche Dans la Ville was Italian director Marcello Pagliero's first production in his adopted country of France. Filmed on location in a grimy seaside village, the story concentrates on a pugnacious longshoreman named Jean (J. P. Kerien). While endeavoring to help a troublesome friend keep his job, Jean must also fend off the amorous assaults of Madeleine (Ginette Leclerc), his friend's wife. This volatile situation inevitably leads to tragedy -- and to a multitude of unexpected repercussions. Director Pagliero's creative use of natural sound effects will be lost to anyone seeing an English-dubbed print of Un Homme Marche Dans la Ville. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Kerien, Robert Dalban, (more)
- 1949
Sweet revenge turns horribly sour in Verdi's tragic opera Rigoletto. This Italian film version of the Verdi classic was lensed at the Royal Opera House of Rome. As a result, it isn't very cinematic, though the singing cannot be faulted. The great Tito Gobbi stars as Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester whose desire to wreak vengeance on the Duke of Mantua (Mario Fillepeschi) results in dire consequence for the jester's beloved daughter Gilda. The last-named role is acted by Marcella Govoni and sung by Lina Pagliughi; the lip-synching doesn't always match, except during the evenly paced "Caro Nome". Incredibly, this grim tale of revenge, rape and murder used to be listed as a "comic opera" in the TV listings of the Chicago Tribune, moving one reader to respond that "for real laughs, why not try Aida, where the lovers are buried alive?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tito Gobbi
- 1947
Released in the US as The Chips are Down, Jean Delannoy's Les Jeux sont Faits represented the first work written directly for the screen by Jean-Paul Sartre. Not surprisingly, the film is drenched with existentialist philosophy, but overall it works best as a romantic tragedy. The story takes place in an unnamed dictatorship, resistance fighter Pierre (Marcello Pagliero) is killed in a street confrontation. Almost simultaneously, Eve (Micheline Presle), the wife of the dictator, dies of poison administered by her unfaithful husband. Pierre and Eve rematerialize on a dismal little street outside of Heaven's waiting room, where the businesslike admissions clerk (Marguerite Moreno) informs them that they might have become lovers had they met while still alive--and that it is possible to briefly return them to Earth to find out if their romance could have been consummated. Desperately, Eve and Pierre agree to be restored to life, hoping not only to fall in love but also to alter the events leading up to their deaths. Alas, and inevitably, nothing works out as planned. Though Sartre's traditional defeatism is prevalent throughout Les Jeux Sont Faits, what lingers longest in the memory is the brilliant performance by Micheline Presle and the (literally) haunting musical score by Georges Auric. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Micheline Presle, Marguerite Moreno, (more)
- 1947
Originally released in France as Dedee D'Anvers in 1948, this tight little melodrama was both directed and co-written by Yves Allegret. The title character, played by Simone Signoret, lives in near-squalor near the docks of Anvers. Her only companions are practitioners in that left-handed form of endeavor known as petty crime. Even the man she lives with, doorman Marco (Marcel Dalio), is not immune to baser instincts: Marco is driven to murder when sea captain Francesco (Marcel Pagliero) threatens to take Dedee away from him. For his troubles, Marco is himself knocked off by Dedee and seedy café-owner Rene (Bernard Blier). And so it goes. Suspense is deliberately downplayed in Dedee in favor of characterization and mood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Signoret, Marcello Pagliero, (more)
A cat burglar, a suicidal veteran, and a starving typist-turned-prostitute are brought together by fate and propelled through the streets of Rome in director Marcello Pagliero's lyrical look at life in Italy following liberation by the Allies. As the rain falls in Rome, a prowling cat burglar (Nando Bruno) prepares for his next job. His mission interrupted by a distraught veteran (Andrea Checchi) whose fiancée had been unfaithful while he was away at war, the sympathetic burglar talks the suicidal man off of his precarious ledge before inviting him out for a night on the town. Later, as police attempt to rescue an impoverished typist who has turned to prostitution as a means of paying rent, the kindly veteran intervenes and the trio share their stories over cognac before coming into the company of an eccentric amnesiac (Vittorio De Sica) with no sense of self. As the unlikely group of new friends make their way to an illegal private casino, their lives each take an unexpected turn as fate stirs up old love, forgotten grudges, and bittersweet memories. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
