Marcello Mastroianni

Jill, a wealthy 18-year-old blonde living with her mother in a luxurious villa on Lake [/b]Geneva, is hopelessly in love with Fabio, an Italian theater director, married to her friend Carla. Frustrated by her unrequited love, she moves to Paris and, after trying unsuccessfully to become a ballerina, turns to modeling. Her looks attract the attention of a film producer, who turns her into an international sex symbol by means of an elaborate publicity campaign. Then one night, after fainting while being crushed by a mob of hysterical fans, she decides to give up her career. Disguised in a black wig, she again meets Fabio and learns he is separated from his wife.Read More »

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Blood Feud tells of the struggle against the Sicilian Mafia, from the streets of Sicily to the tenements of New York. Titina (Sophia Loren) is a happily married Sicilian housewife but, like so many others, is widowed early in life when her husband is brutally murdered by the Mafia. After spending ten years away, Spallone (Marcello Mastroianni), returns home and falls in love with Titina. Also returning to avenge his cousin’s death is Nick (Giancarlo Giannini), a small-time crook, who also falls for his cousin’s widow. In the deadly game of love as in war there is always a winner and a loser…Read More »

To the priest in a small Italian town, the Splendor cinema (now sold for redevelopment) is a ‘dark grotto of sin’; to owner Jordan (Mastroianni), it’s a shrine. But writer/director Scola is more concerned with the grey areas between such views: the patrons who desert cinema in droves when TV offers cheap, undemanding entertainment. Using flashback and clips, he conveys something of the medium’s superiority over the box, at the same time beautifully unravelling a tale of life-long devotion and hard graft from Jordan, his long-term lover/usherette (Vlady), and the projectionist (Troisi). Their temperamental relationships over two decades are conveyed with great affection by the accomplished cast; and the film is full of wonderful moments – such as the homage to Capra at the climax – which manage to be both magical and unsentimental.Read More »

Aboard a ship late in the 19th-century, a middle-aged Italian tells his story of love to a Russian. In a series of flashbacks filmed almost entirely in creams, whites, and ochers, the clownish and superfluous Romano Patroni leaves his wife’s opulent home to visit a spa where he falls in love with a Russian woman whose marriage is a horror. He pursues her into the Russian heartland and returns to Italy resolved to leave his wife and marry his love.Read More »

Amelia and Pippo are reunited after several decades to perform their old music-hall act (imitating Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) on a TV variety show. It’s both a touchingly nostalgic journey into the past, and a viciously satirical attack on television in general and Italian TV in particular, portraying it as a mindless freakshow aimed at morons.Read More »

Some stories need to be told after they are over. We need to know that all the events are past and gone, in order to feel the same nostalgia as the storyteller. When a story is happening “now,” there is always the possibility of surprise and happiness. But when a story happened “then,” and it is a love story, then even the happy moments feel bittersweet, and of course that is the whole point of the story.Read More »

A fashion show in Paris draws the usual bunch of people; designers, reporters, models, magazine editors, photographers. Lots of unconnected stories which all revolve around this show, and an all-star cast.Read More »

A dangerous love triangle develops among brothers and an immigrant woman hired to work the fields.Read More »

After the fall of Napoleon, the Restoration begins. Fulvio (Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita), an aristocrat who has dedicated his life to the revolution has become disillusioned and his cowardice keeps him from joining his comrades. As he struggles to manage his evasion and lies he gets swept up in a suicidal uprising in Southern Italy. Stunningly photographed with lush period detail and featuring the Taviani brothers’ trademark magic realism and absurdist irony, Allonsanfàn has Mastroianni on top form as the reluctant insurgent and one of Ennio Morricone’s finest scores.Read More »