Juliette Greco plays Therese, a nun-in-training who returns to “civilian” life to care for her young sister Denise (Irene Gatter). When Denise is compromised by love-’em-and-leave-’em stud Max (Philippe LeMaire), Therese forces Max at gunpoint to propose marriage to the hapless girl. Fascinated by this extreme behavior, Max falls madly in love with Therese…Read More »
Agostina is a maid turned prostitute during World War II. She sends all the money she makes to the local priest in her home village for safekeeping. After the war is over, Agostina and her friend plan to open a clothing store so they return to her home island to collect the money from the priest. But after arriving there, Agostina learns in shock that the priest has been dead for more than a year and that his eccentric successor mistook the received money for donations and spent all of it on building a new orphanage for war orphans. To make matters worse, other islanders think that Agostina is now a millionaire and beg her to help them financially.Read More »
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However trivial – or downright ridiculous – the plot may become, Freda shows a mastery of sheer cinematic style that puts most of the more highly-touted Italian directors to shame. Like Minnelli or Sirk, Mizoguchi or Ophuls, Visconti or Fellini, he is in love with the visual and sensuous possibilities of the camera itself. The breathtaking decor and costumes (by Vittorio Nino Novarese, who went on to dress the most elephantine of Hollywood epics) are as strong a dramatic presence as the actors themselves. That’s no slight against the cast: Gassman was as great an actor as Marcello Mastroianni; Sanson and Canale are as strong as they are sensual, as gutsy as they are glamorous – a world away from the insipid sex objects that decorate most action movies!Read More »
