Sophia Loren Archives - Tempi nostri (1954)

FOREIGN TITLES & RELEASE DATES

Italy

- March 16, 1954 - Tempi nostri (Zibaldone No 2) / "La macchina fotografica" - 132'

France (Paris) - November 2, 1955 - Quelques pas dans la vie -

Spain - 1955 - Nuestro tiempo -
West Germany - March 31, 1956 - Andere Zeiten -

USA (New York City, Little Carnegie Theater) - September 28, 1959 - The Anatomy of Love / "The Camera" - 92'


Italian poster	Spanish poster	American poster

PLOT

During a day on the job, magistrate De Russo handles a series of cases and criminal offences. In a single day, six cases are submitted to him. One of them concerns a priest from the province of Brescia, don Michele, who has come to the city with the boys from a scooter club. He is accused of provoking a brawl and causing damage in a pool hall. In reality, things are not what they seem. In actual fact, a young woman named Anna has stolen 50,000 liras from him on the tram. After following the girl, who was using the money to try and get away from a man who was exploiting her, don Michele manages to recover the money by playing pool with the exploiter and winning the game. Hence the brawl, with the timely intervention of the members of the scooter club. Despite the young woman’s testimony, however, the priest is condemned to three months imprisonment, though with benefits of the law. (Enrico Lancia)
Story from Age (Agenore Incrocci) and Furio Scarpelli.

FILMING LOCATIONS

Cinecittà, Rome (Italy)

Filming dates: 1953

MAIN CAST

Episode: La macchina fotografica (The Camera)

Totó (Dionillo, the dandy)
Sophia Loren (the young woman)
Silvio Bagolini (the thief)

NOTES

The film is made up of nine episodes. The others are: Scena all’aperto (Open Air Scene) by Marino Moretti with Vittorio De Sica; Il pupo (The Boy) by Alberto Moravia with Marcello Mastroianni and Lea Padovani; Mara (Mara) by Vasco Pratolini with Daniele Delorme and Yves Montand; Il bacio (The Kiss) by Achille Campanile; Gli innamorati (The Lovers) by Ercole Patti; Casa d’altri (Other People’s House) by Silvio D’Arzo with Michel Simon; Scusi, ma... (Excuse me, but...) by Anton Germano Rossi with Alberto Sordi; Don Corradino (Don Corradino) by Giuseppe Marotta with Vittorio De Sica, Maria Fiore and Eduardo De Filippo.

Sophia meets Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni for the first time during the making of the movie but they don't actually work together since they have a role in other episodes.

QUOTES AND REVIEWS

"As for Toto’s interest in Sophia Loren in the fifth (story), it is that of a burlesque comedian for a girl with a noticeable shape. As a fellow who buys a camera so he may have the fun of photographing her, he runs through a standard routine of wiggling his nostrils and popping his eyes. The age of this picture may be gathered from the fact that Miss Loren’s role is merely that of a shapely stooge for the clown."
Bosley Crowther, New York Times, 29 sep 1959

"Although marquees proclaim Sophia Loren as the female star of Anatomy of Love, the film was made some years ago, and she is little more than a teen-age straight woman for Toto the comedian. She appears only in the final episode, a brief, ridiculous farce. Sophia nonetheless shows the shape of things to come."
Time, 12 oct 1959

"Photography plays a prominent role in Tempi nostri. A purely slapstick episode called "La macchina fotografica" pairs Loren with the film comedian Totò. The hugely popular Totò plays a lecher who purchases a camera for the express purpose of beguiling a comely young girl (Loren) to pose for him. In this traditional sex comedy, Sophia is merely the straight woman, the comic occasion of Totò's trademark burlesque take on lust."
Deirdre Donohue, Sophia Style

"Sophia was then very untried, to say the least, and I was apprehensive about a couple of scenes that she had to do with Toto, who was notorious for improvising dialogue and adding his own little flights of fancy not in the script. Suddenly we're shooting one of these scenes, and he's doing exactly what I was afraid of. But there was Sophia, giving as good as she got, daring Toto to go along even further. There was an instinctive Neapolitan rapport between the two of them."
Alessandro Blasetti