Renato Castellani
1913 - 1985
Mio figlio professore
Renato Castellani
Aldo Fabrizi, Giorgio De Lullo
During Fascism and after WWII, a school porter sacrifices himself so his son, who is slightly ashamed of a lowly background, can become a respected professor.The film also takes a few jabs at Italy's rapid governmental reshuffles.
Professor, My Son
Hell in the City
Renato Castellani
Anna Magnani, Giulietta Masina
A young girl comes to prison and experiences the entire prison subculture. The inmates she befriends vary from big tough dangerous dames to smaller submissive ladies who are totally lost in prison life.
Hell in the City
Due soldi di speranza
Renato Castellani
Maria Fiore, Vincenzo Musolino
The film is the third in director Castellani's "young love" trilogy (the first two being Sotto il sole di Roma (1948) and È primavera...(1950)). The story concerns the romance between Carmela (Fiore) and Antonio (Musolino). The ardor is one-sided at first, but Carmela is a determined young woman, willing to scale and conquer any obstacle in pursuing her heart's desire. Once he's "hooked," Antonio scurries from job to job to prove his financial viability. Faced with the hostility of their parents, Carmela and Antonio symbolically shed themselves of all responsibilities to others in a climactic act of stark-naked bravado.
Two Cents Worth of Hope
Un colpo di pistola
Renato Castellani
Assia Noris, Fosco Giachetti
Count Anikoff, a Russian officer, challenges his best friend, Sergei, to a duel when he finds him courting the young woman he, too, is in love with. Sergei can't bring himself to kill his friend. He fires only after taking the bullet out of his pistol. Now, it is the Count's turn to fire...
A Pistol Shot
È primavera...
Renato Castellani
Mario Angelotti, Elena Varzi
The second of Castellani's trilogy dealing with the less-than-smooth course of young love in postwar Italy (it was filmed just after Sotto il sole di Roma and just before Two Cents Worth of Hope). Leading man Mario Angelotti, loving not wisely but too well, quickly discovers that the penalty for bigamy is two wives. Between his tempestuous Sicilian bride, played by Elena Varzi and his sedate Milanese missus (Irene Gemma), the poor man barely has time to take a breath.
It's Forever Springtime
3 notti d'amore
Renato Castellani, Luigi Comencini
Catherine Spaak, John Phillip Law
Omnibus film with individual segments directed by Renato Castellani, Luigi Comencini and Franco Rossi; all of them starring the radiant Catherine Spaak as "out of place" women longing for love, in a Sicillian village, a monastery, and a modern Italian urban setting, respectively.
Three Nights of Love
Zazà
Renato Castellani
Isa Miranda, Antonio Centa
A glamorous female singer Zazà (Isa Miranda) has an affair with a passerby engineer Dufresne (Antonio Centa). But when Zazà impatiently comes to him in Paris she finds out that he is married and even has a daughter. He wants to escape from his relatives with Zazà, but, disillusioned and exhausted, she rejects his proposition and insists on his coming back to his family.
Zazà
La donna della montagna
Renato Castellani
Marina Berti, Amedeo Nazzari
An engineer, devastated by the death of his fiance during a mountain expedition in north Italy, hopes he might forget about her by marrying a young nurse who adores him. But one day he returns to the mountain retreat where he’d had such happy days with his fiance, leaving his young bride distraught.
Woman of the Mountains
Romeo and Juliet
Renato Castellani
Laurence Harvey, Susan Shentall
In Shakespeare's classic play, the Montagues and Capulets, two families of Renaissance Italy, have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.
Romeo and Juliet
