Angela Cardile Movies
- 1982
Two men (Alberto Sordi and Carlo Verdone) representing two different generations of Italian comics team up to present a swinging father (Sordi) and naïve son (Verdone) on a trip to a seaside haven where the father's mistress awaits. The first stop on their itinerary is the mother's house, shared by her "significant other," a television scriptwriter. Continuing on through gorgeous seaside vistas and several minor adventures, the mismatched father-son pair finally reach the mistress's house. At that point, the father has just about given up trying to teach his innocent son about sex because he seems hopelessly disinterested -- or so it seems. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Carlo Verdone, (more)
- 1973
Proof of the success of French filmmaker Edouard Molinaro is the fact that several of his home-grown hits have been remade as American films. The most recent example of this is 1996's The Birdcage, a highly profitable reworking of Molinaro's La Cage aux Folles (1978). The director's 1973 comedy A Pain in the A... also went the Cage aux Folles route of enjoying worldwide popularity, then undergoing an Americanization process. In the Molinaro original, Lino Ventura plays a friendless hit man who holes up in an Italian hotel room, awaiting the opportunity to knock off his target, a mob witness. No sooner has Ventura drawn a bead on his would-be victim than he is interrupted by the comically suicidal Jacques Brel, who wants to jump from the open window in the assassin's room. The banter and byplay between Ventura and Brel is priceless, especially when veering towards the "sick" humor that Molinaro handles so well. Based on a play by Francis Veber, Pain in the A... was remade by Billy Wilder as Buddy Buddy (1978), with Walter Matthau as the hit man and Jack Lemmon as his unexpected guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Ventura, Jacques Brel, (more)
Vittorio De Sica's A Brief Vacation (Una Breva Vacanza) stars Florinda Bolkan as a downtrodden working woman. Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, Bolkan contracts tuberculosis. She is granted a brief vacation at a health spa, where a whole new world--and potential new life--is opened up to her. A Brief Vacation was scripted by the prolific Cesar Zavattini, who like De Sica had once been a guiding force in the Italian neorealist movement. Though not De Sica's final film, A Brief Vacation was the last of the director's work to be released in America. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
To fully appreciate the international box-office bonanza Divorce, Italian Style (Divorzio All'Italiana), one must remember that back in 1962, divorce was illegal in Italy. Ferdinando Cefalú(Marcello Mastroianni) would love to unload his demanding, sex-starved, monumentally unappealing wife, Rosalia (Daniela Rocca), but he can't take the legal means open to his American counterparts. Ferdinando can, however, kill off his wife and receive a light sentence...provided he catches the lady committing adultery. The trick now is to make his plate-of-potatoes spouse attractive enough so that some other man will accommodate Ferdinando by cuckolding him. Divorce, Italian Style not only cleaned up financially, but also won several international film awards, as well as an Oscar nomination for Marcello Mastroianni. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Daniela Rocca, (more)
