by Vittorio De Sica
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| Spanish poster | Italian poster | Italian poster | German poster |
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Episode:
Adelina
An
illegal cigarette vendor resorts to a
long series of pregnancies 50 as not to get arrested. Prison is
therefore
avoided until an unforeseen accident removes Adelina from her state of
perpetuai gestation. But the generosity of the Neapolitan people
succeeds in
resolving everything just the same. The story is based on the life of
Concetta
Mucardi who had 19 children in order to avoid emprisonment. She died in
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Episode:
Anna Story:
from the short story ‘Troppo
ricca’ by Alberto Moravia -
Screenplay: Cesare Zavattini, Bilia Bilia
PLOT A wealthy Milanese woman begins an idyll
with a man of modest means in an attempt to escape from her arid world.
A banal
incident is enough however to make Anna’s spirit resurface, leading her
to
abandon the man and return to her own world. |
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Episode:
Mara Story
and screenplay: Cesare Zavattini - Choreography: Jacques Ruet -
‘Abat-jour’ sung by Henry Wright
Shooting of the episode "Mara" begins in Rome in July. Interiors at Titanus Appia Studios, Rome. CAST PLOT
Mara is a call girl whom a young seminarian falls in love with. Mara, too, is attracted to him, but when she realizes that the young man is about to abandon his studies because of her, she convinces him to return to the seminary, while she goes back to her old life and her lovers. |
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CREDITS
Photography: Giuseppe Rotunno (Techniscope, Technicolor) Hats: Jean Barthet Music: Armando Trovajoli Costume design: Piero Tosi (Adelina, Mara), Christian Dior (Anna) Still photographer: Pierluigi Praturlon, Zinn Arthur, Mimmo Cattarinich Production: Carlo Ponti for Compagnia Cinematografica Champion (Rome) Les Films Concordia (Paris) |
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NOTES
Sophia's
cachet: $500,000. The
prison scenes were shot on location in Sophia's
first film with Marcello Mastroianni since 1955's La
fortuna di essere donna. Mastroianni is now an international
star too
since he
starred in two Fellini classics, La dolce vita (1960) and 8 1/2,
released in
February 1963. Italian
deputy Agostino Greggi asks the movie be seized for high
immorality when it is released in The
film wins several awards, including Best Actress to Loren (David di
Donatello), Best Foreign Film (Academy and Globe Awards),
Best
Foreign Actor to Mastroianni ( Sophia
sings in the episode Mara the song "La partita di pallone"
originally performed by singer Rita Pavone in 1962. |
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QUOTES
AND REVIEWS "Sophia's performance is one of
priceless elegance.
It`s time to convince ourselves that she is cut out for these roles in
which her unrestrained vitality can express itself freely."
"As the
half-undressed Mara she
reminds us of the best of her incarnations of
physical beauty: the free and easy young Roman created by Blasetti some
years
ago in Too Bad She's Bad." "Miss
Loren is in her finest fettle as this well set-up Roman prostitute
whose beaming equanimity is unsettled at the very time her most lusty
customer, a scatterbrained sport from Bologna, is in town for a couple
of days." "But the real
threat is Sophia, who
is such a splendid creature that she wears rags or furs with equal
power to stun. If she is not the world's most beautiful woman, she
close enough for me." LIfe |
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