Enrico Maria Salerno Movies

The bumbling thieves Egisto (Massimo Boldi) and Dalmazio (Paolo Villaggio), from the 1986 Italian hit comedy Scuola di Ladri, are fresh out of prison (and an insane asylum) in Part II, and they soon find one another and team up with their infinitely more capable uncle (Enrico Mario Salerno) and the supposed daughter of their deceased partner, Susanna -- a sly wench if ever there was one. Together, they attempt and even succeed at a series of daring robberies, thanks more to their persistence than to any skill on their part. As a foursome, much of the comedy in the story centers on their unavailing attempts to outwit and swindle one another. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The Last House on the Left was a morally bankrupt but highly profitable film about rape, murder, and revenge. The 1978 sequel, The New House on the Left, may even be more reprehensible than the original. Whereas the murder site of the first film was a remote house, the scene of the crime in the sequel is a train (thereby negating the title). This film includes more rapes, more murders, and more revenge than the original --and, undoubtedly, more cash lining the pockets of the producers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The government of an African state emerging from colonial rule must employ unusual techniques in order to prevent the large corporation doing business in their county from completely suborning its officials. Calvin Lockhart plays Ruman, a major government official who pretends to be a corruptible minor bureaucrat in order to thwart the big companies' efforts. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

When the eyewitness to a brutal murder decides not to testify, the actual murderer chooses to finger him as the murderer and claim eyewitness status for himself. Through a series of blunders and accidents, the poor sap winds up with a life sentence. This film is in Italian. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this Italian crime drama, Bertone (Enrico Maria Salerno) is a moderately honest homicide cop. Unfortunately, the court system is so inept and corrupt that many more-or-less honest policemen have begun taking the law into their own hands. Between his efforts to thwart the growth of crime and to control his vengeful co-workers, homicide-chief Bertone has his hands full. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This comedy takes sharp aim at the hypocritical behavior of supposedly celibate Roman Catholic clergy. Keeping to the middle ground, neither too "holy" nor too critical, it was a hit in native Italy. Don Clemente (Lando Buzzanca) has done too good a job as a priest in his rural parish and is promoted to a wealthy parish in Rome. Along with the new job come new temptations, most prominent of which is the desire to embrace the problems of Silvia, a beautiful young prostitute with a yen for married life (Rossana Podesta). Their relationship develops until he must choose between his calling and marrying Silvia. As he is growing accustomed to life in the city, he gains insight into his romantic temptations by observing how his peers and superiors in the church respond to theirs. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Busy actor Enrico Maria Salerno made his directorial debut with this predictable tearjerker using a cast better known to fans of Italian horror than to its target audience. Salerno's script, co-written with Giuseppe Berto, features genre veterans Tony Musante and Florinda Bolkan as an estranged couple reunited for a day. They wander around Venice reminiscing about the ups and downs of their marriage, wondering what drove them apart. As might be expected, their memories bring them back together, but the husband's terminal illness turns the sweet reunion into a mawkish Love Story clone. Stelvio Cipriani's overwrought score only compounds the film's soap-opera feel, but at least there are some lovely shots of Venice by cinematographer Marcello Gatto. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

This trend-setting thriller put its director, Dario Argento, on the international map and began a flood of imitative mystery-horror hybrids which dominated Italian genre output in the early 1970s. Tony Musante, best known for the television series Toma, portrays an American who witnesses the murder of a woman at a trendy Rome art gallery. Before long, Musante finds himself targeted by a mysterious killer. Based on a story by Byron Edgar Wallace, Bird and hints at the flamboyance which would become Argento's trademark. This and Argento's subsequent two films Il Gatto a Nove Code and Quattro Mosche di Velluto Grigio were much less horror-oriented than his later work. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

In this big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce (the sort of project that could get an immediate green light in the late 1960's and at practically no other time before or since), Ewa Aulin is Candy, a sweet young woman who doesn't seem entirely aware of the powerful sexual desire she brings out in men. While her father (John Astin) and mother (Elsa Martinelli) try to keep Candy in line, the task proves to be all but impossible, as she's seduced by a remarkable variety of men in her journeys, including a booze-addled poet (Richard Burton), a mystical guru who lives on a truck (Marlon Brando), a gardener from Mexico (Ringo Starr), a fanatical military man who refuses to leave his plane (Walter Matthau), a pair of uncomfortably high-strung doctors (John Huston and James Coburn) and even her own uncle (Astin, again). The Byrds and Steppenwolf contributed songs to the soundtrack; the screenplay was written by Buck Henry. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi