Furio Scarpelli Movies

In this comedy anthology, the sex-capades of several Italian couples are chronicled. In "The Scandal," a dull and insensitive husband is unaware that his lonely wife has been flirting with a young buck at a vacation resort. When the husband finally finds out, he gets jealous and the marriage is renewed. In "Sin in the Afternoon," a movie producer is frustrated because his wife refuses to touch him, and so he winds up picking up a comely woman off the street and taking her to a motel. "The Victim" chronicles the relationship between an insanely jealousy woman and her beleaguered husband, whom she drives away. She, seeking revenge, begins an affair with his best friend. In the final episode, "Modern People," a deeply indebted cheese maker is given the option of paying the debt in cash or allowing the debtor an evening of lovemaking with his gorgeous wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a bungling gang leader and his henchmen attempt to swipe a suitcase full of loot from a soccer pool. The task seems simple enough, but the gang suffers a variety of zany mishaps before the leader finally gets hold of the money. Just as he gets it, he is arrested by the police for jaywalking. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mario Monicelli's classic crime comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (I Soliti Ignoti) features Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni as a pair of thieves who head a group of criminals in a break-in attempt. Their plan involves digging an underground tunnel from an apartment that leads to a neighboring business and drilling their way inside. In addition to each of the burglars struggling with individual personal problems, the group must reassess their plans after they find themselves not in the store, but a different room of the apartment from which they started. Big Deal on Madonna Street is a spoof of Jules Dassin's caper classic Rififi. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Marcello Mastroianni portrays the handsome lover Casanova pitted against a thoroughly modern woman. This is a legendary hero often depicted in movies, but this time he is portrayed with a slightly different problem - the only time he's "in the mood" is when he feels that he is in danger. His job as NATO officer offers plenty of opportunity for his sexual arousal problems to be assuaged. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In 1945, filmmaker Roberto Rossellini released the daring Rome, Open City, a film that sharply criticized the Nazis and became a cornerstone of the Italian Neorealist movement. This Italian drama tells the fascinating true story of the film's genesis. Originally Rossellini and his screenwriter wanted the film to chronicle and comment upon the Nazi occupation of Rome. After finding a suitable cast they began making the film and then showed a few rushes to outspoken producer Pepino Amato who was so upset by the radical message that he walked out, taking his financial backing with him. Fortunately, the director manages to find backing from an enigmatic countess. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Marcello Mastroianni plays the downtrodden Bruno Baldassare, a murder-squad investigator in Rome who gets no respect from his peers, who give him the least interesting cases. His bumbling aide, Cantalamessa, gets even less respect. While a lightning strike could have caused the deaths of two people, the circumstances of their deaths arouse his suspicions. In this satirical detective comedy, among the suspects he must question are the victim's widow, Princess Dell'Orso (Ursula Andress) and a seedy screenwriter named Harry Hellman (Peter Ustinov). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The Pizza Triangle is a freewheeling satire of Italian mores, hilarious despite its outwardly morbid plotline. The murder of flower girl Monica Vitti triggers a long flashback involving Vitti, middle-aged Communist bricklayer Marcello Mastrioanni, and young pizza chef Giancarlo Giannini. The married Mastrioanni falls in love with Vitti, but Giannini gets in the way. A fight results, after which the girl is hospitalized. Declaring a truce, the three lovers move in together, allowing Vitti tie to decide whom she loves best. The subsequent discord nearly results in the girl's suicide; she moves out and takes up with butcher Hercules Cortes, but returns to Gianinni when he attempts suicide. The now unemployed and unmarried Mastrioanni shows up, and when Vitti refuses again to commit herself to any one man, another fight results--this time ending in Vitti's death. Also released as A Drama of Jealousy and Jealousy Italian Style, The Pizza Triangle was originally shown in Italy as Dramma della Gelosia--Tutti i Particolari in Cronaca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Popular Italian comic Alberto Sordi does an excellent job of creating a bumbling yet effective police inspector by the unlikely name of Dante Lombardozzi, in this entertaining comedy-murder mystery by director Luigi Comencini. Lombardozzi starts nosing around a murder that has been supposedly solved because he smells something fishy. His investigations bring him into contact with a hooker, Irma (Angela Portaluri) and the beginnings of an intuition that a scandal lies behind the murder mystery. Since the real facts about the crime were covered up as soon as possible, Lombardozzi may be looking at a serious roadblock in trying to nail the real culprit. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this remake of the 1983 Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skarmeta, the time and place have been changed to Italy in the 1950s, but the relationship between the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda and Mario (Massimo Troisi), the postman who delivers his copious mail, is still the focus of attention. In this version of the story, scripted by a collective of Anna Pavignano, the director Michael Radford, Troisi himself, and a few others (based on Skarmeta's original story), Neruda is an aloof and slightly elitist figure who is seeking solitude on an island off the coast of Italy, taking a respite from political problems at home. Mario is a poet at heart and employs every measure he is capable of inventing to win his way into the affections and attention of the great author. As his efforts start to bear fruit and Neruda unbends and begins to share conversation and philosophy with Mario, the postman idolizes the poet all the more. Eventually, Neruda shares his leftist political philosophy as well -- and helps him win over the captivating Beatrice, the woman of Mario's dreams. When Neruda leaves, Mario enters into high gear as he prepares material for the next time he sees Neruda -- his ardor and patience, alluded to in the original title -- are essentially indestructible. (Massimo Troisi) was fated never to know that Il Postino would receive worldwide acclaim and be nominated for an Oscar for "Best Picture" in 1995 (the first foreign film nominated in that category since Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers 22 years earlier). Suffering from a heart ailment and unable to work more than an hour or two on the filming of Il Postino each day, he died in his sleep at the age of 41, the day after shooting ended on the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Serafina, Pulcinella and Isabella are three lusty, beautiful members of a traveling theatrical troupe touring the French countryside in the 17th century, leaving in their wake a crop of broken hearts. This picaresque romantic comedy is based on the 1863 novel Le Capitaine Fracasse by Theophile Gauthier. In the story, the company stops at a castle owned by the scruffy young Baron de Sigognac (Vincent Perez), who is deeply smitten with the charms of the middle-aged (and somewhat morose) beauty Serafina (Ornella Muti). He decides to travel with the company, and Serafina perversely tries to get him to woo the youngest of the company, the newly bereaved Isabella (Emmanuelle Béart). When the company plays before a group of noblemen, the three women make yet more conquests, a few of them unwelcome, and a series of competitions and duels for the hearts of the lovely ladies follows, before everyone settles down with the "right" person. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

It Happened in Rome -- as well as in Venice, Florence, and points in between in this frothy excursion into beautiful Italy. The slight story concerns two young girls -- the German Hilde (Inge Schoener) and the French Josette (Isabelle Corey) -- who are hitching through the countryside. Vacationing Britisher Margaret (June Laverick) has pity on them and gives them a lift. Unfortunately, Margaret has not been paying attention to her gas gauge, and the three end up trying to push the vehicle to a gas station. In the process, they lose hold of the car at a crucial moment and it rolls into the sea. With her means of transportation ruined, Margaret joins Hilde and Josette as a hitchhiker. Along the way, each of them encounters their fair share of amorous Latin lovers before finding true love. Interestingly, the writers of this glossy romance include the anarcho-communist Dario Fo, as well as Furio Scarpelli and Age (who both collaborated on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

In this Italian mystery, a detective journeys into the rarified world of the idle rich to look into a puzzling murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide