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.

Splendor.1989.1080p.BluRay.x264-CiNEFiLE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 50 min
Size: 	7.95 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1792x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	5:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	8 788 kb/s
BPP: 	0.189
Audio
#1:  	Italian 2.0ch DTS @ 1 509 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/C834F9861A3CDF6/Splendor.1989.1080p.BluRay.x264-CiNEFiLE.mkv

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Ettore Scola – Splendor (1989) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The tranquility of a Romanian town is upset by the arrival of a beautiful stranger coinciding with the discovery of a new star by a modest astronomy professor.

Steaua.fara.avi

General
Container:  	AVI
Runtime: 	1 h 21 min
Size: 	1.09 GiB
Video
Codec: 	XviD
Resolution: 	528x336 
Aspect ratio:  	16:10
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 717 kb/s
BPP: 	0.387
Audio
#1:  	Romanian 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/52DBB40ECFCB8B6/Steaua.fara.avi

Language(s):Romanian
Subtitles:English hardcoded

The post Henri Colpi – Mona, l’etoile sans nom aka Steaua fara Nume aka The Star with no Name (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

In a port area of France, clashes between a gang of young delinquents and a tribe of gypsies. From the initial peccadillo to the final drama, each action leads to a more violent reaction of vengeance, each treated with the excess and cruelty that he himself displayed.

Pardonnez.nos.offenses.1956.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.x264-FW.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 19 min
Size: 	3.43 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 949 kb/s
BPP: 	0.115
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AAC LC @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/5DB2AAAE89458EC/Pardonnez.nos.offenses.1956.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.x264-FW.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/35EEA52B20CFDC7/Pardonnez.nos.offenses.1956.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.x264-FW.eng.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Robert Hossein – Pardonnez nos offenses (1956) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

La ragazza in vetrina was supposed to be a turning point in Emmer’s cinema but it went on to become a cursed film. In accordance with the evolution of Italian cinema, the director chose a story by Rodolfo Sonego which combines a tough theme, Italian migrants working in Dutch and Belgian mines (the tragedy in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, which left 262 dead, half of which were Italian, took place only four years earlier), with a raunchy one, about the red light district in Amsterdam. It combines his love of wandering and the sketch with a harsh new gaze, bolstered by the black-and-white cinematography of Otello Martelli, fresh from La dolce vita. The first half-hour of the film depicts the difficult lives of the miners; then it concentrates on two characters, one timid, the other self-confident, but both lonely and unhappy, as they meet two prostitutes. The unity of time and the idea of the voyage involving impossible encounters (Domenica d’agosto, Parigi è sempre Parigi) now takes on a documentary flavour and a deep bitterness. However, the film was blocked by the Italian censor, who held it up for months before finally issuing a 16 rating, after eliminating one scene considered too raunchy. Nevertheless, many felt that the censor’s real target was actually the description of the working conditions faced by Italian emigrants. Embittered by the experience, Emmer dedicated himself to Tv advertising until 1990. The full-length Italian version was only restored forty years after its release.

Emiliano Morreale

Given that there were no hotels in the region [of Marcinelle], I slept on a camp bed, a guest in a miners’ hut. One day, a handsome young man from the province of Padova, a sort of young Vincenzoni, arrived at the hut and began telling me about the girls in the windows in Amsterdam. He was going out with one of these prostitutes, who had Sundays off. He would go to collect her on Saturday evening and they would spend the weekend going around the little hotels along the canals that fed into the ocean, celebrating with caviar and champagne.

Naturally I asked him how on earth he had so much money and he told me that there were certain mine shafts that, statistically, were prone to explode every ten-twelve years […] and the teams that accepted to work in them were paid as much as five times the usual rate. So, every Saturday this Italian minor, who didn’t have a wife in Padova to whom he could send a money order, found himself with all this money to spend with his woman in the window.

Following this meeting, I naturally decided to base the film entirely around this character. I drew up a story outline about twenty-five pages in length, which Pasolini came across in the producer’s office. Fascinated by the idea of the contrast between these Mediterranean lads and these porcelain dolls all made up under the lights of the shop windows, he called me. He wanted at all costs to write the screenplay, and that is what he did. “It’s beautiful. I don’t care if they don’t pay us anything for it.”

Rodolfo Sonego in Il cervello di Alberto Sordi. Rodolfo Sonego e il suo cinema, edited by Tatti Sanguineti, Adelphi, Milano 2015

This film brought me back to arthouse productions, which I had always preferred. It shows the hardship of immigrants of all origins working the mines, the slavish existence of girls for hire displayed like consumer goods, and the improbable dream of a young miner who wants to save a girl from the strange double life she admits to leading. The locations are stunning: a shoreline, a tiny house, a landscape that seems larger than life in the eye of Martelli’s camera. The performances were perfect: Lino Ventura, who shows with this part, at last, his humanity; Magali Noël, sparkling with life and wit; Bernard Fresson, astonishingly right for a first-time part. My own character’s inner violence allowed me to show an equivocal and unsettling aspect of my being that had been ignored and ill-used for years.

Marina Vlady, 24 images/seconde, Fayard, Paris 2005

Luciano_Emmer_-_La_Ragazza_In_Vetrina__1961_.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 31 min
Size: 	6.31 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1792x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	5:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	10 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.215
Audio
#1:  	Italian 2.0ch E-AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/F9AC303E55C8CAE/Luciano_Emmer_-_La_Ragazza_In_Vetrina__1961_.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/3227AC44A3BE105/Luciano_Emmer_-_La_Ragazza_In_Vetrina__1961_.EN.srt
https://nitro.download/view/A6D0D315A3BDDA9/Luciano_Emmer_-_La_Ragazza_In_Vetrina__1961_.ES.srt

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English, Spanish

The post Luciano Emmer – La ragazza in vetrina AKA Woman in the Window (1961) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world, and the most alluring. As soon as Vincent sets eyes on this remarkable work of art he knows that he must possess it, which is not so unlikely as it seems because he is the most accomplished burglar in the world. Stealing valuable paintings is something that Vincent specialises in, so walking off with Da Vinci’s portrait of the woman with the inscrutable smile ought to be a doddle. First he needs a pretext for his frequent visits to the Louvre Museum, and this he obtains by getting himself taken on as an assistant to the picture framer Monsieur Lemercier. He also takes the trouble to strike up a friendly rapport with the man whose job it is to guard the coveted painting. How providential that, like Vincent, he should have a keen interest in chess.

Whilst dodging the unwelcome advances of Lemercier’s temperamental wife Titine, our hero discovers love – in the form of one of the residents of the brothel opposite his present lodgings. A stunning blonde, Nicole is as devilishly enchanting as La Gioconda and just as hard to get your hands on – as Vincent discovers when he tries to chat her up, unsuccessfully. Never one to give up, even when the odds are against him, Vincent agrees to meet up with her in three day’s time, at an inn near Avignon. This gives him just enough time to pull off the crime of the century – the theft of the Mona Lisa! Meanwhile, Nicole will be away in Normandy, on tour as an assistant to a stage magician named Merlin. Stealing the painting proves to be easier than Vincent had thought – he manages to distract the guard with a game of chess.

Leaving behind his usual signature, Romeo, the enterprising burglar is soon making a neat getaway, not knowing that he is being watched by two suspicious looking individuals. Clearly intent on recovering the painting for their own advantage, these two give chase and end up taking Nicole prisoner. She manages to escape and soon joins up with Vincent, who has the painting safely stowed away in his red suitcase. Hotly pursued by the police and some opportunistic crooks, Vincent and Nicole make a desperate bid for freedom, but through a series of mishaps the priceless artwork goes stray and finally ends up back where it started. Vincent doesn’t let this one failure get him down. He is still at liberty and has found himself a spunky accomplice who is every bit as valuable to him as the Mona Lisa. From now on, Vincent’s nefarious exploits will be signed Romeo and Juliet!

— James Travers.

1.58GB | 1h 38m | 720×432 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/888A3C49F12E465/The_Mona_Lisa_Has_Been_Stolen_(1966)_–_Michel_Deville.mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Michel Deville – On a volé la Joconde AKA The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
‘In England during the Second World War, a German spy is pursued by the British secret service in a bid to prevent him from returning to France with a valuable microfilm. In a mountain chalet, two spies, one male, the other female, meet, neither knowing the identity of the other. Not knowing which side the other is on, they are powerfully drawn to one another…’
– James Travers

1.10GB | 1h 17m | 921×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/410A2AE8C14AB03/La.nuit.des.espions.1959.DVDRip.x264.AC3.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/8378EA068A62DF4/La.nuit.des.espions.1959.DVDRip.x264.AC3.idx
https://nitro.download/view/9F39DDB3E81ACD3/La.nuit.des.espions.1959.DVDRip.x264.AC3.sub
https://nitro.download/view/56AD41411CB39D5/La.nuit.des.espions.1959.DVDRip.x264.AC3.srt

Language:French
Subtitles:English,French HoH (idx/sub)

The post Robert Hossein – La nuit des espions AKA Night Encounter (1959) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Robert Hossein was writer, director and star of the suspense melodrama Toi le Venin. Picked up by a beautiful motorist, jobless hitchhiker Pierre (Hossein) is subsequently romanced by the girl. Immediately thereafter, however, she dumps him, attempting to run him over as a final insult. Memorizing her license number, Pierre pursues the enigmatic motorist. Arriving at her home, Pierre is met by two young ladies (Marina Vlady and Odelle Versois), either one of whom might be the woman he’s looking for. The rest of the film concerns Pierre’s efforts to figure out which of his two hostesses intends to do him further harm.

5.26GB | 1h 32m | 1194×720 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2389C015BBCC24A/Night.Is.Not.for.Sleep.1958.720p.BluRay.FLAC2.0.x264-CRiSC.mkv

Language:French
Subtitles:English

The post Robert Hossein – Toi… le venin AKA Blonde in a White Car (1958) first appeared on Cinema of the World.