Boccaccio '70
An anthology of four adult tales: a young couple tries to hide their marriage and the wife’s supposed pregnancy from their place of employment; a billboard photo of a scantily clad woman comes to life to torment the local censor; a lottery is held in which the prize is to spend the night with a beautiful woman; an aristocratic couple comes to terms with life and marriage after the domineering husband is caught visiting sex workers by the press.
Federico Fellini
Vittorio De Sica
Luchino Visconti
Mario Monicelli
Casts & Crew
Marisa Solinas
Germano Gilioli
Anita Ekberg
Peppino De Filippo
Antonio Acqua
Donatella Della Nora
Romy Schneider
Tomás Milián
Romolo Valli
Sophia Loren
Luigi Giuliani
Alfio Vita
Annarosa Garatti
Also Directed by Federico Fellini
A series of disjointed mythical tales set in first century Rome.
Five stories of life, love and tears in Rome by five of Italy's best film directors. Each of them take his turn at showing how love is found, lost, and nurtured in the Eternal City.
In Italy, small-town newlyweds Wanda and Ivan Cavalli embark on their honeymoon in the big city of Rome. Ivan dutifully wants to keep appointments with family and church, but Wanda is only interested in meeting her favorite photo-strip star known as "The White Sheik". While Wanda impetuously sneaks away to locate the object of her affections, disconsolate Ivan tries his hardest to keep up appearances with the couple's relatives.
A businessman finds himself trapped at a hotel and threatened by women en masse.
When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.
Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.
Three directors each adapt a Poe short story to the screen: "Toby Dammit" features a disheveled drugged and drunk English movie star who nods acceptance in the Italian press and his producers fawn over him. "Metzengerstein" features a Mediveal countess who has a love-hate relationship with a black stallion - who it turns out is really her dead lover. "William Wilson" tells the story of a sadistic Austrian student with an exact double whom he later kills.
Federico Fellini welcomes us into his world of film making with a mockumentary about his life in film, as a Japanese film crew follows him around.
In Italy, Checco Dal Monte manages a troupe of traveling performers with plenty of heart but minimal talent. At a small town engagement, he encounters the starry-eyed, gorgeous Lily Antonelli, and hires her as a dancer on the show. Vivacious Lily quickly sells out crowds and earns the resentment of Checco's mistress, Melina Amour, but the fledgling performer has far bigger ambitions and soon sets her sights on a higher-profile role.
Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.
Also Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Antonio, an unemployed man in the depressed post-WWII economy of Italy, at last finds a good job hanging up posters, the only requirement for which is that he must have his own bicycle. When Antonio’s bicycle is stolen, he and his son are forced to walk the streets of Rome in search of it, or else face ruin.
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.
Once upon a time an old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Toto, enters an orphanage. Toto leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. The squatters discover oil in the land and Toto sees a vision of the old woman who gives him a magic dove that will grant him anything he wishes.
A young woman teaches commercial writing and makes her students practice by writing letters addressed to an imaginary recipient from Vienna. One day, the love letter the woman writes to this non-existent man is accidentally sent by one of her students –and falls into the hands of a real person.
While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?
A comedy of errors about marriage and infidelity. Vittorio De Sica's debut film.
Adriana De Mauro loves Cesar Braggi, but Cesar, honoring his father's dying wish, allows his brother, Antonio, to marry Adriana. As fate wills, Antonio dies in an automobile accident. Adriana's mourning for Antonio ends when Cesar steps in to rekindle her lust of life. Soon, Adriana begins having dizzy spells. Cesar helps her to a specialist, and the diagnosis is not good. She has an incurable disease. For the rest of their time together, Cesar woos Adriana and eventually proposes to her on a gondola. Yet, for some reason or other, Signora De Mauro, Adriana's mother, is not pleased with the relationship and argues bitterly with Cesar.
Paolo and Maria are two elementary teachers, who love each other, but can not have a child.
Six vignettes set in the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome
An old woman's poignant reminiscence of her youth in a convent school, the happy moments and the sad, and her tragic love for a Garibaldian.
Also Directed by Luchino Visconti
In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.
A lonely city transplant, and a sheltered girl haunted by a lover’s promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion.
An Italian WWII documentary by a group of neorealists.
Documentary on Luchino Visconti's travels and auditions in search for a young actor to portray the role of Tadzio in his adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice", finally choosing Swedish actor Björn Andrésen.
Composer Gustav von Aschenbach, travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.
Sandra comes back to Volterra, in Tuscany, the little town where she spent her childhood. She is with her American husband, Andrew. She wishes to pay homage to her father who died in Auschwitz where she was still a little child. In Volterra, Andrew meets for the first time Gianni, Sandra's brother. He soon realizes that Sandra and Gianni have a secret since their childhood. (IMDb)
Also Directed by Mario Monicelli
The artistic evolution of the great composer, whose work left an indelible mark in the history of Italian cinema. In this documentary Nino Rota's extraordinary musical production relives in the words of his friends and colleagues. His collaboration with Visconti and Fellini are truly memorable. His movie score and sequences of his performances in theaters all over the world hand us down a full and evocative outline of this outstanding artist.
Like every year, everyone is going back to the ancestral family's home for the Christmas holidays. But this time, the old folks have a surprise, a good surprise for them. They have decided to go living with one of their children and make him or her inherit the family house.
The four old friends meet on the grave of the fifth of them, Perozzi, who died at the end of the first episode. Time has passed but they are still up for adventures and cruel jokes, and while they recall the one they created together with the late friend, new ones are on their way, starting right there at the cemetery.
On New Year's Eve, an insecure, struggling actress (Anna Magnani) has nothing to do. When a colleague invites her to a New Year's party, she jumps at the opportunity. Accidentally she runs into an old acting acquaintance (Toto), who is helping a professional pickpocket (Ben Gazzara) steal from people during the hustle-bustle of New Year's Eve festivities. During the course of the evening, they have numerous crazy, humorous adventures all over Rome at different parties, restaurants, and even the Trevi fountain. Magnani's character (Tortorella) falls for Gazzara's character (Lello) without knowing what he's up to, while Toto tries to placate them both.
Four different directors present lighthearted stories about married Italian couples and their dilemmas with jealousy, sex and love.
After saving an infant of royal blood, knight Brancaleone forms a new army and sets out to return the baby to his father: a prince fighting in the Crusades.
The adventures of a couple of scoundrels in the Spain of the 16th century.
Antonio Scaparro (Toto) is obsessed for women. He invents his own way to hide from them - in the attic of his house.
The family of Vittorio Missoni went ahead with the fashion house's planned runway show in Italy on Sunday night.