Paolo Stoppa
Aliens send a hypnotic signal through a TV channel, and the signal makes people dance and makes them forget their fears.
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.
The marquess of Grillo is a good-natured, clever and women-loving man who is always inventing stories and cracking all types of jokes. The film tells the story of his life.
Summer Sunday at a small beach house at the coast of Rome. Many people and stories: women's basketball team, two sports-obsessed soldiers, two men with their girlfriends and the priest with a big secret, an elderly couple with their pregnant granddaughter, and engagemented couple wanting to have sex for the first time.
Sicily 1812: the first liberal constitution shall put an end to the privileges of the feudal lords. Luca Corbara, sent by the Minister of Finance to control the landed properties, begins to suspect that the current Carini feud is made up of lands usurped more than two centuries before by the lover of the killed Baroness.
A Grand Slapstick comedy about four buddies serving in the army. Their long-suffering sergeant attempts to whip them into shape but the conflict spirals out of control.
Absurdism’s king of comedy, Luigi Pirandello, adapted a 1915 short story he wrote titled “Signora Frola and Signor Ponza, Her Son-in-Law” into a play two years later. Right You Are (If You Think Are) was presented in dramatic form as a “A Parable in Three Acts.” As in any instructive parable, the characterization is put fully into the service of delivering the lesson and thus creates mysteries about motivation that remain unresolved by the conclusion.
A sexy widow discovers her late husband had a secret apartment where he cheated on her. Now she decides to use the same apartment to explore her own sexuality.
Ignazio is married to a much younger girl, as she starts being attracted by a handsome young man. The new couple set up several plans to kill the cuckhold, but.. it always seems to work out for lucky Ignazio!
A widow whose land and life are in danger as the railroad is getting closer and closer to taking them over. A mysterious harmonica player joins forces with a desperado to protect the woman and her land.
Criminal mastermind 'The Fox' sets up a phony film production and masquerades as it's director as part of a plan to smuggle a stolen gold shipment into Italy.
A dedicated layabout (Jean-Pierre Cassel) bounces from relationship to relationship, moving on only when the prospect of employment presents itself.
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.
Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his mother is dying he considers visiting her secretly in his Spanish home town. But his biggest enemy, the Spanish police officer Vinolas, prepared a trap at the hospital as a chance to finally catch Artiguez.
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
Based on a Anton Chekhov short story, this slight tale has some good moments as the drama of a young boy's journey unfolds. The lad comes from peasant stock, and one day his family decides it would be best for him to go live with his uncle in the city. The only problem is that the city is all the way across the Russian steppes, and at this time in history, that arduous journey could only be undertaken by horse and carriage. Reminiscent of the American pioneer wagon trains heading West, the tale lacks any attacks from hostile forces but is filled with charming vignettes. In one part of the journey, the boy comes across some fishermen along a river, harpooning their catch for the day. In another segment, he is entertained when some folk dancers do a lively show. But in general, it is too long and unmomentous a journey to hold attention well for nearly two hours.
Vanina Vanini, a bored, spoiled Roman countess, falls in love with a dedicated young patriot who is in Rome to assassinate a traitor to the brotherhood of the Carboneria.
Josepha is only eighteen and longs for the companionship of a group of her peers who dabble in activities on the shady side of a legal dividing line. In order to get the semi-delinquent group to accept her, Josepha runs to the police with a tall tale about the local druggist, Savary. The police are looking for a sex murderer, and Josepha insists Savary is their man. What she does not know, however, can do her considerable damage.
The film shows how Italy's historic national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi (embodied by Renzo Ricci) leads a military campaign known as Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 and conquers Sicily and Naples. When the Bourbon monarchy has left Southern Italy, he supports Victor Emmanuel II of Italy who achieves a lasting unification under the aegis the House of Savoy. Roberto Rossellini has said he was prouder of this film than of any other film he ever made.
The Last Judgement (Italian: Il giudizio universale) is a 1961 commedia all'italiana film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. It was coproduced with France. It has an all-star Italian and international cast, including Americans Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine; Greek Melina Mercouri and French Fernandel, Anouk Aimée and Lino Ventura. The film was a huge flop, massacred by critics and audiences when it was released. It was filmed in black and white, but the last sequence, the dance at theatre, is in color.
Ulisse is a naive young man out looking for a job after being released from the army. He drops the offer he gets from a group of fascists to go in with the Fossatis, a family of anarchists (unknown to him).
The ironic study of a young man's poignant adventures and sensual adventures...based on "Roman Tales" by Alberto Moravia.
Loreley looks back to the happy times when she became a silent movie star with the huge success of "La Contessa Azzurra", directed by Don Salvatore and produced by Don Peppino, the owner of a Café Chantant.
Carthage in Flames is a 1960 Italian historical drama film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Pierre Brasseur, Daniel Gélin and Anne Heywood. The film depicts the last of the Punic Wars between the Roman Republic and Carthage.
In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs: an American pilot, a Russian sergeant and a British major
In Spain, during the Napoleonic rule, the French Governor of Andalusia is besieged by the locals who have countless demands and wishes.
When a widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her sons become romantic rivals, with deadly results.
In the village of Fuentecilla, there is a medicinal spa which was very popular in the past but that now has been forgotten by the public. In order to bring back the tourists, the "prominent men" of the village organize a fake miracle: the apparition of San Dimas, the local patron saint, which will take place every Thursday night. At first it works, but trouble begins when a stranger appears, claiming that he knows what's going on and making peculiar demands in exchange for his silence. Written by Pablo Montoya
Raffaele, a Neapolitan student, get the news that his beloved grandmother Sabella is dying. He immediately goes to Pollena to be beside her.
Jacinto, a former bullfighter who lives miserably with his nephew Pepote, receives a letter reminding he, as agreed a few days before, he should go to a bullfight to be held that evening at Las Ventas. The letter infuriates Jacinto who thinks this is a joke, since he retired from the arena for years, has not signed any contract. When Jacinto is located around the square, picking up cigarette butts that pull the audience, make sure the letter was not a joke, because his name appears on the poster.
A newlywed couple wins the lottery and the prize is a mink fur which maybe will change their life forever.
A lecherous governor of Naples in 1680 lusts after the wives of several peasants, particularly after the miller's wife Carmela. The miller himself plans to avenge his honor by seducing the wife of the governor.
Three women share the same apartment and the same goal, to find a wealthy husband and settle down.
Peppino Bardellotti, a widower, lives in Milan with his four daughters and ex sister-in-law Matilde, who urges girls to settle down by marrying a wealthy man.
These are the years of the Second World War, and Toto is imprisoned in a concentration camp, suffering the harassment of Colonel Hammler, a Nazi cruel and despotic.
Three stories, very different in space and time. Lysistrata, a dancer from ancient times, Jeanne d'Arc, medieval warrior and Elisabeth, American war widow who comes on pilgrimage in Italy.
The Cheerful Squadron is a 1954 Italian war-comedy film directed by Paolo Moffa and Interpreted by movie stars like Paolo Stoppa, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Sordi and Silvana Pampanini. Based on the military environment novel The Allegro Squadron by Georges Courteline (1886), this film presents a series of sketches on military life in the late nineteenth century.
Music, ballet, folk dances and mime eliciting the spirit of Naples across the ages are loosely tied together by the comedic wanderings and exploits of the Esposito family.
The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.
Tribute to Naples, where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of 6 Napolitean episodes : a clown exploited by a gangster ; an inconstant pizza seller (Sofia) loosing her husband's ring ; the funeral of a dead child ; the gambler Count Prospero B. defeated by a kid ; the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa, a prostitute ; the "professor" Ersilio Micci, a "wisdom seller".
A middle-aged insurer, after spending a sleepless night because of a quarrel with his wife, goes to the pharmacy to buy a sleeping pill. By mistake, the doctor, instead of giving him a sedative, gives him poison. The man goes out of town to visit a client and, unaware that he is wanted by the police, is more than once about to swallow the pills; but every time an obstacle prevents him from fulfilling his purpose.
An Italo-French biopic about one of the most famous women of Belle Époque, Spanish-born dancer and actress, star of Folies-Bèrgere: Carolina Otero.
Vittorio De Sica's original 89-minute "Terminal Station" was released in Europe in April 1953 as "Stazione Termini," the Italian title of Cesare Zavattini's story. Producer David O. Selznick later recut the film down to 64 minutes, dramatically altering characterization by removing establishing shots and neorealist touches. Columbia Pictures released his shortened and re-edited version in May 1954 as "Indiscretion of an American Wife." In 1983, the picture was restored to its original length and shown for the first time in the U.S. at that length.
Joe Calvert (Fernadel) is a nearsighted, friendly man who works as a clerk in a large department store, who gets into embarrassing situations when he isn't wearing his glasses. Since Joe works in the department that sells cowboy clothes to kids, his boss is adamant against his wearing glasses as cowboys and glasses don't go together. After a series of near-blind misadventures, Joe is fired. Dejected, he goes to the movies and seats himself next to a dangerous gangster and, when he leaves, takes the man's raincoat. In the subway, on a crowded train, he removes a heavy object from coat pocket. It's a gun and the passengers are in a panic and Joe is arrested, and the police announce they have captured Public Enemy No. 1. The leader's mob, unaware that it isn't their boss the police have, plan an escape, with most of the plans made by gun moll Lola (Zsa Zsa Gabor.) Soon, Joe finds both the police and the gangsters after him.
Marie, a young doctor, settles down on the Ouessant Island. She will be able to win the diffidence of the local population but she will have to fight for her independence after falling in love with an italian engineer.
After his battles with the communist mayor Peppone, Don Camillo is sent in exile by his bishop in a remote village. Peppone thought he got the village in his hands. But when the municipality decide to build a dike against the periodic floods, the proprietor of the land refuses. War between the village clans is about to begin. Maybe only the strong hand of the priest could persuade the landlord to change his mind. Will Peppone passed over his pride and send for his enemy?
A young and shy girl Celestina arrives from her small home village to Rome to become a housemaid. Her inexperience and naivety causes her to change her employers quite frequently. As she is moving from one family to another she makes friends with other Roman maids and falls desperately in love with a handsome plumber Fernando. But Fernando isn't telling Celestina that he is already engaged to another woman.
Voice of Silence is a 1953 Italian drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, written by Giuseppe Berto, starring Aldo Fabrizi and Jean Marais.
Ignazio Panizza goes from one failure to the other until he meets a singer, Caterina, provided with an exceptional voice.
A daydreaming French composer sees himself as a fine figure dashing through history.
Gino Bardi is a centre-forward in a football team which is about to be relegated to the second division. Just before a very important match a girl he has a relationship with proposes him to rig it. He refuses the offer but he actually begins playing like an amateur and the crowd begin to smell something fishy going on.
Turn-of-the-century Naples. Salvatore Ruotolo and his wife are murdered and their bodies are found in different locations. Since the evidence points to a crime by the Neapolitan crime organization, the Camorra, fear and corruption cause serious hindrances to the investigation by police authorities. In charge is a young and courageous judge who, using evidence discovered by chance, tries to reconstruct the story of the double murder. The plot that the judge must unravel is very complicated. Many people are questioned, even those apparently above suspicion. Deciding to get to the bottom of the matter, the judge keeps all the suspects under arrest, causing a backlash of public opinion. But in the face of passive resistance which he finds everywhere, even from his own colleagues and family, he begins to feel discouraged and is about to give up the investigation when a new piece of evidence comes to light.
The story of 5 girls among 200 who answer a wanted ad for a modest secretarial position, which leads overcrowding in the building and a tragic accident.
Wrongly accused of his wife's death, a marine officer is forced to resign and sees his life fall apart.
A French/Italian motion picture drama covering the seven deadly sins in seven separate sections.
Tino Scotti plays a man who is tricked into trying to kill himself. When all his attempts fail, he is believed to be immortal.
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.
Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce Faust to sign a pact to exchange his soul for renewed youth, riches and power. But though the "new" Faust is attracted by the material improvements in his life, he remains wary of signing, while Mephistopheles, now posing as the aged professor whose body he inhabits, must find a way to trick him into signing the pact - and dissuade him from the love of a gypsy girl who prays for his soul - or find himself damned by his own Master...
A beautiful tavern-keeper finds herself getting caught up in a war between Italy and Turkey.
Sicily, 17th Century. When his fiancée is kidnapped, a young man sets out to find her.
Elena invites her former husband Roberto to her country house with the aim of winning him back while her sister Monica invites her lover Filippo.
The famous actor Amedeo Nazzari is forced to stay overnight in a small local hotel because of a car breakdown...
An unscrupulous theatrical agent introduces his latest "discovery" to an elderly baron who becomes infatuated with her.
Leo (Vittorio De Sica) is young man trying to make a living without any success. Through fortuitous circumstances, he is assigned by the director of a big firm to accompany for one night the daughter of the firm's accountant, Titi (María Mercader). Leo pretends then to be the son of a tycoon, and takes her in a luxurious restaurant.
Marquis Eduardo Parascandolo, after having squandered all his possessions for not having cared about his finances, spends his time professing to some young people his philosophy of life.
The nephew of a wealthy nobleman, convicted for a forged check, is replaced in prison by a poor engineer. From the exchange of people derives a chain of misunderstandings and messes that ends out well.
In the kingdom of Kindaor, traitor Sedesmondo kills his brother, the King of Kindaor, and becomes the tyrant of kingdom. He abandons the prince Arminio to beasts in the woods, but lions don't kill him and breed him as one of them.
Three brothers, all played by Toto, vie to inherit a fortune from their natural father.
Everything unfolds in Naples seventeenth century, when a mysterious masked swordsman who calls Salvador Rossa becomes champion of the needy and lonely struggle against the cruel tyrant that frightens the country.
In Naples, a local composer falls in love with an American tourist.
