Checco Rissone
2021Patto col diavolo
Luigi Chiarini
Annibale Betrone, Guido Celano
The title of this Italian melodrama translates to Pact with the Devil. However, His Satanic Majesty does not appear in the film. Rather, this expensively produced period piece is more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, with young love threatened by warring families. In his first Italian film, Hollywood veteran Eduardo Cianelli goes through his usual villainous paces as the scheming father of the male lead (Jacques Francois). The most fascinating performance is rendered by Umberto Spadaro, as the village idiot, or is he? Patto col Diavolo makes the most of the visual dynamics of Italy's mountainous Calabrian region.
Pact with the Devil
Ladri di biciclette
Vittorio De Sica
Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola
Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.
Bicycle Thieves
Riso amaro
Giuseppe De Santis
Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling
Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.
Bitter Rice
Miracolo a Milano
Vittorio De Sica
Emma Gramatica, Francesco Golisano
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.
Miracle in Milan
Le stagioni del nostro amore
Florestano Vancini
Enrico Maria Salerno, Anouk Aimée
Vittorio is a 40-year-old journalist who reaches a mid-life crisis. His wife nags him constantly for ignoring her and their child. After his mistress dumps him, Vittorio returns to the town where he spent his childhood to reflect on the state of his life. Flashbacks are used to tell of Vittorio’s relationship with his parents as a child and the effects World War II had on his development.
Seasons of Our Love
Molti sogni per le strade
Mario Camerini
Anna Magnani, Massimo Girotti
Driven by the constant quarrels with his wife and humiliated by a rich Milanese industrialist after asking him for a job, an unemployed person decides to steal a car from a garage guarded by a friend.
Woman Trouble
Il cappello da prete
Ferdinando Maria Poggioli
Roldano Lupi, Lída Baarová
The baron of Santafusca, descended from a noble family, leads a dissipated life. To pay debts he is forced to sell his house. He tries to steal from the house of a very rich priest and, surprised during the theft, he kills the priest, and then throws the body in an abandoned well. He continues his life of revelries and luxury, until the remorse for the crime trigger a process of self-destruction. The nightmares of the baron, tormented by the only evidence left of the murder, the hat of the priest ,drags him into a daring and hallucinated series of ups and downs to the brink of insanity and jail.
Il cappello da prete
Venga a prendere il caffè da noi
Alberto Lattuada
Ugo Tognazzi, Francesca Romana Coluzzi
At age 50, tax inspector Emerenziano decides to settle down and aims to the three Tettamanzi sisters, who, though not young or pretty by any means, have recently inherited a large amount of money.
Come Have Coffee with Us
La morte risale a ieri sera
Duccio Tessari
Frank Wolff, Raf Vallone
A chief police inspector investigates the disappearance of a 25-year-old woman, the daughter of a lonely widower. After she turns up dead, the cops race to find the killers before the grieving father does
Death Occurred Last Night
Eva
Joseph Losey
Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker
Best-selling author Tyvian Jones has a life of leisure in Venice, Italy, until he has a chance encounter with sultry Frenchwoman Eva Olivier. He falls for her instantly, despite already having wedding plans with Francesca Ferrara. Winning Eva's affection proves elusive; she's more interested in money than in love. But Tyvian remain steadfast in his obsession, going after Eva with a fervor that threatens to destroy his life.
Eva
