Claudia Cardinale

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

Legendary Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti's life and remarkable cinematic achievements are investigated in depth in Adam Low's 2002 documentary produced by the BBC entitled The Life and Times of Count Luchino Visconti. Born into Italian aristocracy in 1906, Visconti's life was one of discontented listlessness until he took a position on French director Jean Renoir's 1936 film Une Partie de Campagne. This development would greatly influence the young Italian's own entry -- not to mention his entire career -- into filmmaking, starting in 1943 with Ossessione, which was simultaneously his directorial debut and the masterwork that launched the Italian neorealist movement. Many of Visconti's colleagues and contemporaries are interviewed by Low, including such luminaries as Claudia Cardinale, Farley Granger, Franco Zeffirelli, and Helmut Berger. The Life and Times of Count Luchino Visconti premiered at the 2002 London Film Festival in connection with a Visconti retrospective produced by the British Film Institute in 2003. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

On the eve of her seventh birthday, little Amanda Meyer (Arlen Aguayo-Stewart) bears witness to the gory spectacle of her parents' murder. So traumatized is Amanda that she is struck mute, unable to communicate in any manner, though she does demonstrate affection towards her favorite doll. Though now under the care of her aunt and tutor Dr. Julia Kerbridge (Catherine Mary Stewart), Amanda is still not out of danger, thanks to sinister figures who intend to get their hands on her doll -- and to extract the valuable corporate secrets for which her parents were killed. Meanwhile, Julia begins to have her doubts about the sincerity of her handsome and convivial neighbor, Kevin Finney (Rob Lowe). Evidently inspired by the 1967 Audrey Hepburn vehicle Wait Until Dark, the made-for-cable Dead Silent debuted over the Lifetime channel on March 27, 2000 -- ironically the same night that ABC offered the premiere of the TV biopic The Audrey Hepburn Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in a Tunisian melting-pot town in 1967 and loosely based on the reminiscences of filmmaker Ferid Boughedir, this bittersweet comedy-drama tells the tale of how the secret conspiracy between three teen girls to lose their virginity before they turn seventeen wreaks havoc on the lives and friendships between their disparate families. The fathers have known each other many years, but underneath their friendship lies a silent but strong undercurrent of tension that relates to their different religions and ethnic origins. One family is Muslim, one is Jewish and the last is Roman Catholic. The trouble erupts because each of the girls choose to dally with men outside their religions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After the death of Peter Sellers in 1980, writer/director Blake Edwards assembled a new "Pink Panther" film from outtakes of Sellers as Inspector Clouseau from previous movies in the series (the result was called The Trail of the Pink Panther) and later made two attempts to revive the series with another actor. In this case, Edwards cast Roberto Benigni as Jacques Gambrelli, a hopelessly inept French policeman who turns out the be the illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau. Gambrelli becomes involved with the investigation of a kidnapping involving the beautiful Princess Yasmin (Debrah Farentino) literally by accident, when he crashes into a car driven by Police Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom). Gambrelli soon becomes smitten with Yasmin, while the investigation suggests that the kidnapping was set up by her mother, the Queen (Shabana Azmi), and her lover, General Jaffar (Aharon Ipale). Claudia Cardinale who played a different character in the original Pink Panther returns, while Burt Kwouk returns as the violent Korean manservant Cato. Roberto Benigni's Gambrelli proved no more successful at the box office than Ted Wass's Clouseau-like Clifton Sleigh in The Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), though after his multiple-Oscar winning success with 1998's La Vita e Bella, Roberto's probably gotten over it. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Nina Menkes' second feature is composed of incidents in the life of a depressed Las Vegas blackjack dealer played by the director's sister and regular collaborator, Tinka Menkes. The first half of the film reveals that she lives in a cheap, ramshackle apartment building, along with a bickering couple and an ailing old man for whom she is caring. There is a reference to a husband who has gone missing, and scenes in which she wanders alone through the city. The heart of the film is a 14-minute sequence of the dealer at work. Its noise, chaos, and gaudy lights wrench the viewer out of the contemplative mood of the scenes that precede it while drilling home the deadening monotony of her job. As if propelled by this sequence's power, the film's narrative strands then begin to move toward completion. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide

In this painful melodrama, an aging mother (Claudia Cardinale) attempts to cope with the progressive deterioration of her grown son due to his drug addiction. At first only manipulative, in addition to stealing from her he eventually becomes abusive and violent, and she must take strong measures if she is to save her own life, much less his. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Postwar France was slow to recover from the after-effects of the World War Two. The economy was doing poorly, and many people were poor and homeless, sleeping under bridges, etc. The winter of 1953-54 proved particularly difficult for these people, as it was one of the coldest on record. Father Pierre (Lambert Wilson), a parish priest, on seeing the suffering of these people (and their frequent death from the cold), was moved to write the French government seeking help for them. When his letter, which was published in the newspapers, succeeded in rousing overwhelming popular support for helping the homeless, he was able to form a charitable group (still active today) titled "Les Chiffoniers d'Emmaus," or "The Ragpickers of Emmaus" to channel help to them. This biographical film tells the true story of Abbe Pierre's successful efforts in those years. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This children's drama centers around a funeral, questions of life after death, and the meaning of love. It tells the tale of two wealthy children, who have every thing but their parents' love, and their nanny. The nanny is instructed to take the kids to their uncle's funeral. There they ask questions about death. She gently explains that the dead go to heaven, a marvelous paradise where there is only love and light. The enchanted children begin pining to see this magical place. They begin experimenting with ways to get there. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In a straightforward yet unexceptional rendering of the life and loves of Alberto (Ben Gazzara), a writer/director approaching the hill though not yet over it, director Alberto Bevilacqua has used his own experiences to fashion a conventional tale about a search for the "perfect woman." His mettlesome neighbor Luisa (Lina Sastri) just will not leave him alone; she was the reason why he ended his marriage to Maura (Claudia Cardinale), but Alberto considers their affair dead and buried. Recently, an anonymous "dream woman" has been calling him for some seductive phone exchanges. As he searches out the identity of the mystery caller he is also distracted by Luisa who starts to insinuate herself back into his affections. Sooner or later, Alberto will just have to decide how to handle his love life, which in the end may only be mesmerizing to himself alone. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This Italian version of Henry IV is based on the Luigi Pirandello play rather than Shakespeare's historical work. Moreover, the Henry depicted herein is not the English king, but the 11th-century Holy Roman emperor. In addition, central character Marcello Mastroianni doesn't play emperor Henry, but instead a contemporary man of wealth who thinks he's Henry. Also, Mastroianni's delusion is not a delusion, but a subterfuge. Well, we told you it was based on a Pirandello play, so enter ye and leave all sanity behind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This melodrama is the second of a two part story based on a novel by Judith Krantz. In this episode, Daisy, the daughter of a Russian prince and an American movie star, must leave college and begin looking for a job in New York so that she can pay her sister's enormous medical bills. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Aldo (Lino Ventura) is a worker in a Canadian goldmine who escapes being murdered by a gang of marauding bandits as they kill off everyone in the camp except Aldo and two Native American workers and then nab the gold stores. The three survivors manage to kill off the assassins and discuss dividing the gold between them, but Aldo soon catches on that the other two intend to keep the gold for themselves. Aldo practices a little one-up-manship, escapes with the two heavy cases of gold, and then when his canoe goes over some rapids he loses it all. Not one to give up easily, Aldo recruits a wheelchair-bound friend and the friend's wife to help him retrieve the golden treasure from the turbulent waters of the river. With the additional help of Aldo's love interest (Claudia Cardinale) and another friend, the group salvage the gold -- but then have to face some stalwart competition in the form of the two Native Americans who have returned looking for their share of the treasure and a third party who also wants in on the take. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide