Those Italian ladies

Regulars here will know how we appreciate those Italian ladies - Sophia, Monica, Gina, Claudia, Silvana, then there's Alida Valli, Elsa Martinelli, Laura Antonelli and of course Magnani .... here are a clutch of new stills. Thanks to Colin for the Sophia pictures I had not seen before; and to that great site Silents & Talkies for that stunning Vitti portrait. (http://silentsandtalkies.blogspot.co.uk/)
I like this one of Claudia and Monica together too - they co-starred a few times in Italian comedies in the '70s, BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER is a lot of fun, as per my review at their labels. We love Silvana too in those items like MAMBO, THE SEA WALL, TEMPEST and those later Visconti and Pasolini films she appeared in. They all have amazing faces and certainly ramp up the glamour. Its been great too discovering Sophia's Italian movies from 1954 and '55 before she went into American films: I particularly like TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, SCANDAL IN SORRENTO, WOMAN OF THE RIVER etc., as per reviews (Italian labels). 

Lots more on them at the labels.

Claudia in THE LEOPARD or SANDRA, Monica in L'AVVENTURA or L'ECLISSE or MODESTY BLAISE, Sophia in anything. Valli in SENSO, Magnani in WILD IS THE WIND or BELLISSIMA, Antonelli in L'INNOCENTE, and how could we forget Gina Lollobrigida in so many movie moments ....

6 lesser known '50s dramas

We are all familiar with those great Fifties dramas, mentioned often here - from SUNSET BOULEVARD to SEPARATE TABLES or IMITATION OF LIFE, taking in those Kazans, Wylers, Douglas Sirks, Tennessee Williams adaptations etc. Here are 6 lesser known ones I like and are worth seeking out ...

NO SAD SONGS FOR ME – Margaret Sullavan’s last film in 1950 is curiously unregarded now, but is a nice little drama set in a mining town where she is the suburban wife who goes to the doctor and finds she has terminal cancer, which seems untreatable back then. She goes into denial but eventually comes to terms with it and plans her husband's and daughter’s future without her. Husband though is dependable Wendall Corey (dull as ever) - enter the young Viveca Lindfors as hubby’s new assistant and Margaret sees they are attracted to each other and she also gets on with Margaret's incessantly chattering daughter, young Natalie Wood. 
It’s a weepie then, but not in your face and the ending is rather nice. In accordance with films of this era she has a large comfy house and a black servant, husband and wife of course have separate beds. A curious choice for action director Rudolph Mate. Margaret Sullavan seems rather neglected now but was one of the great stars of her day, we like her a lot here, as per the label.



THE LUSTY MEN. Nick Ray’s 1952 drama about rodeos (produced by Jerry Wald, with authentic rodeo locations) has not been seen for a long time, I thought this was a Fox film, but its RKO Radio.  It may be one of Ray’s best films, with certainly among the best work of the three leads: Robert Mitchum is Jeff McCloud a rootless, broke rodeo star, Susan Hayward and Arthur Kennedy are the married couple who want a ranch. He teaches Kennedy how to become a rodeo champion, to the disquiet of Hayward, giving a solid, reined-in performance, as she and Mitchum fight their attraction. This is nicely downbeat – seeing Mitchum crossing a wind-strewn rodeo arena brings THE MISFITS to mind, particularly Montgomery Clift playing that other rootless rodeo rider. Also that sequence when Mitchum returns to his childhood home … Lee Garmes’ camerawork makes it all look authentic, and the final scenes are deeply affecting. This is one film that deserves rediscovery.

Mitchum tries to be a ranch hand (to be close to Louise - Hayward)  and passes on his rodeo fever on to Kennedy, whose success alienates his wife as he now hangs around with the rodeo crowd. Kennedy initially took up rodeo riding to make enough money for their ranch, but now has money to spend, drink, with hangers-on and the attention of bar-room floozies. The film creates an exciting atmosphere with wild horses, bucking broncos and leisure time spent carousing in the bars where a day's prize money could be lost in drinking and gambling, then there is the inevitable tragic ending ... It really is a nice companion piece to THE MISFITS, and both Hayward and Mitchum do some of their best work here. Perhaps it might have benefited from being in colour.

WILD IS THE WIND. Another good discovery is this long unseen George Cukor/Anna Magnani item from 1957. Magnani is magnetic as the sister from Italy brought to America to marry her late sister's husband, Anthony Quinn in very gruff mode here. Quinn's protege young Anthony Franciosa is the only one to show her affection as she struggles with life on their bleak ranch, which rapidly escalates to a doomed romance. I did not care for Magnani's over the top performance in the acclaimed ROSE TATTOO when I saw it a while ago, but I love her here, as reined in by Cukor. She has a wonderful scene at the outdoor party when she sings a lovely little song, and has a nice scene with young Dolores Hart too. There is also another great theme tune (by Johnny Mathis - Nina Simone and David Bowie did great later versions of it too) and, surprisingly for Cukor, the scenes of capturing wild horses is as forceful as Huston's in THE MISFITS. Anna is of course marvellous in Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH, and its fascinating seeing her with Brando in THE FUGITIVE KIND, and in Visconti's BELLISSIMA. 

THIS IS MY LOVE, 1954 - Linda Darnell is Vida, the unmarried sister of the more vivacious Faith Domergue married to crippled ex-dancer Dan Duryea who is very jealous of his young attractive wife. Vida lives with the mismatched couple and works in their diner and is engaged (or stringing along) a very dull boyfriend, until one day his friend, Rick Jason, walks in and seems the answer to Vida’s dreams. He is merely leading her along however until he meets the vivacious Faith, thus setting in motion a tale of rage, murder and revenge, played out in lurid colours as the girls sling hash in the diner. 

'50s lurid melodramas don’t come much better than this, as directed by Stuart Heisler. Unlike the glossy melodramas of Minnelli or Sirk, this is a gritty, downbeat affair. Linda is as terrific here as she was in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES. 

A friend of mine, Jerry, loves it too, and his IMDB review is perfect:

As soon as Franz Waxman's lush score swelled up over the credits I knew this one would deliver - and I wasn't disappointed. Vida (Linda Darnell) is a "spinster" who slings hash in her Brother in Law's diner and is engaged to the world's most boring man. Into the diner wanders her fiancée's army buddy - foxy Rick Jason - a "gas station casanova", and when left alone together Rick comes on to her... she plays hard to get - so hard to get in fact that Rick turns to her married sister Evelyn (Faith Domergue) for comfort, and the stage is set for resentment, deceit, adultery, jealousy, sibling rivalry.. and murder. 

This one really deserves to be better known. I'm not sure whether the lurid greens and purples that dominate the colour scheme are symbolic of the jealousy and anger simmering below the surface, and mark out Stuart Heisler as an neglected auteur... or it was just a lousy print. Connie Russell sings the title tune with lyrics as Darnell and Jason go out dancing. Dan Duryea is a bitter cripple. and Darnell is absolutely heartbreaking here - never knew she had it in her. Its everything I wanted from Douglas Sirk or late period Minnelli and never got. Absolutely delicious from start to finish and highly recommended. 9/10

[Rick Jason was also back in the '50s diner milieu in the downbeat '57 Fox film of Steinbeck's THE WAYWARD BUS as the bus driver married to shrewish diner owner Joan Collins (which Linda has tested for and would have been ideal casting, but Fox discarded their old star in favour of the new English girl) and with down-on-her-luck stripper Jayne Mansfield also on board the bus].

Two 1954 mellers with those new Italian girls Sophia Loren and Silvana Mangano:

MAMBO is a film I had never heard of until recently, but its a fascinating puzzle. Its a Paramount film directed by Robert Rossen (an odd choice for him) but its also a Carlo Ponti-Dino De Laurentiis production set mainly in Venice and Rome with two Italian stars, Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman – if only it had been in color with that great scenery and Venetian masked balls and the colourful Katherine Dunham dance group, which Silvana joins. She looks terrific here and in the dance numbers (the mambo must have been big about then as Loren does a terrific one in her ‘working in the river in shorts’ film WOMAN OF THE RIVER). MAMBO’s convoluted plot features Shelley Winters (Mrs Gasssman at the time) in what is surely one of the first clearly implied lesbian roles as she has a major crush on Silvana. Michael Rennie completes the odd quartet. Silvana's numbers are available on YouTube, as is MAMBO in full.

WOMAN OF THE RIVER. I have now re-seen the 1954 WOMAN OF THE RIVER for the first time since I saw it as a kid, and I am amazed at the 19 year old Sophia here in 1954, a very busy year for her - as Nives the proud canning factory girl who falls for hunk Rik Battaglia she does a sensational mambo dance and is just wonderful - no wonder it was her calling card to international films. She also goes cane cutting in the Po river, and it ends in drama with her young child. Its a film for the Italian market and Pasolini had a hand in the script, but its certainly vivid 50+ years later.I loved this and Sophia when I saw it as a kid in Ireland. 

Plus a rom-com treat: 

BUT NOT FOR ME is a neglected gem from that great year 1959 and was a treat to catch recently. Its one of Clark Gable's last films [he had just done TEACHER'S PET with Doris Day, and would next go to Italy for IT STARTED IN NAPLES with Sophia Loren (30 years his junior, but its great fun) and then finally to that fatal MISFITS location]. Here he is guying his older image as the Broadway producer falling for his ambitions young secretary Carroll Baker who also wants to be an actress. Its a comedy set in the theatreland of the '50s and has some nice views of New York back then, particuarly as his car glides through Manhattan in the morning, as Ella sings that great theme song. Best of the cast though is Lilli Palmer enjoying her role as his ex-wife watching on the sidelines. Will she get him back at the end? It's nicely worked out and there is also Lee J Cobb in scenery-chewing mode as a drunken playright, and pretty Barry Coe as Carroll's boyfriend. A nice Perlberg-Seaton production from Paramount.

Italian choices: Marcello & Jacques, Anna & Giulietta

CRONACA FAMILIARE (FAMILY DIARY), 1962. Finally, a look at Valerio Zurlini’s absorbing family drama with brilliant performances from Marcello Mastroianni and Jacques Perrin. Post-war Italy looks marvellous, as lensed by Giussepe Rottuno, and produced by Geoffredo Lombardo. Sylvie scores too as the grand-mother. It is all as marvellous as De Sica’s GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI (Italian label). Zurlini’s film is a melancholy meditation on two very different brothers, poor tubucular writer Enrico (Mastroianni) and the also ailing Lorenzo – Perrin is as effective here as he was in Zurlini’s GIRL WITH A SUITCASE or Bolognini’s LA CORRUZIONE, and of course this was Mastroianni’s great era too.. 

The downbeat story is totally affecting and leaves one in an emotional state. Did I say it looks marvellous? Its a perfectly restored print.

HELL IN THE CITY, 1959  (aka CAGED, Nella Citta L’Inferno) . Marvellous widescreen black and white drama with lots of comic moments from Renato Castellani and scipted by veteran Suso Cecchi D'Amico, which is a showcase for two of Italy’s greatest actresses Anna Magnani and Giulietta Masina. We are in a Roman prison, run by nuns. Masina is Lina, the timid newcomer, a variation on Masina’s CABIRIA – Lina is another lovelorn waif, seemingly a bit simple, who has been sent to prison for unknowingly aiding a robbery – a maid for a rich family, she was fooled by a man (Alberti Sordi doing a cameo) who got her to allow him into the house and then took her to the cinema while his accomplice carried out the robbery. Lina cries a lot and exasperates hardened criminal Egle – Magnani, forever in her black slip, as she dominates the screen. 

The other inmates are a varied bunch and we get involved in some stories. Renato Salvatori plays Piero, whom the nice young girl can see with the aid of a mirror, and there may be a happy ending for them. Lina finally leaves but will she be back? SPOILER AHEAD: Yes she does return and is now a hardened criminal, Egle is horrified to see how she has changed as Lina thanks her for teaching her the tricks of the trade. It is a satisfying conclusion and the two leads play it to the hilt. 

Antonioni, Fellini and Visconti as well as De Sica and Rossellini may have been the Italian great directors (along with Pasolini & Bertolucci and more), but its been fascinating catching up with those early films by Mauro Bolognini (1922-2001),which we like a lot here - LA NOTTE BRAVA, GIOVANI MARITI, CORRUPTION, SENILITA, METELLO, GRAN BOLLITO etc (as reviewed at Italian label). I still have to see Mastroianni & Cardinale in his highly-regarded IL BELL'ANTONIO, 1960, and Belmondo and Cardinale in LA VIACCIA, 1961., 

Another one, not available now, is his equally fascinating sounding FROM A ROMAN BALCONY (LA GIORNATA BALORDA), 1960, from a Moravia novel, with those attractive players Jean Sorel and Lea Massari. The trailer for it is on YouTube though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10i0K8iAT40

Bolognini also did episodes in those Italian compendium films I like: LE BAMBOLE (Four Kinds of Love - the hilarious and sexy Sorel & Lollobrigida episode) and LE FATA (The Queens), Sorel with Raquel Welch. 

Next Italian: Marcello and Romy in FANTASMA D'AMORE, 1981 - finally, a sub-titled print, and the Blu-ray of THE GREAT BEAUTY.  

Italy or Greece? the Quinn report ....

Still undecided on a Greek or Italian holiday? Let Anthony Quinn show us how in 2 trash items:

She was the most famous woman in the world. He was a peasant, a pirate, a shark. THE GREEK TYCOON is the story of their fiery romance. Anthony Quinn portrays Theo Tomasis - the world's richest and most flamboyant shipping magnate. He's a man who seemingly has everything he could want - who reaches out and captures his final prize: lovely, expensive, legendard Liz Cassidy, widow of a president of the United States. This lavishly mounted drama, which focuses on the international jet set's continual struggle for love and power, was filmed in Corfu, Athens, London, New York and Washington, D.C. against backdrops of breathtaking beauty and luxury. 

It is also a Trash Classic, maybe the last of the great bad films. Dating from 1978 this has it all in spades - Quinn and Bisset ideal as Onassis and Jackie O, with James Franciscus as the assasssinated president (at least they did not try to duplicate Dallas ...), Edward Albert is the son, Raf Vallone as his brother and rival ship magnate, Marilu Tolo the Callas figure, not given much to do here, and neither are Luciana Paluzzi and Camilla Sparv as the discarded Mrs Onassis. We spend our time mainly on yachts and helicopters (don't these rich people have actual homes they spend time in?), as wily Tomasis (Onassis in all but name) lures the President to his yacht by dangling a British ex-Prime Minister (Ronald Culver, maybe playing Macmillan) as bait, while he gets to know the fabulous Liz - Bisset playing Jacqueline to the manner born. The high life looks rather dull actually but it is all fabulously trashy entertainment, as helmed by the once-interesting J. Lee Thompson. 

Thanks, Poseidon!

The best moment is the end - the rich magnate, alone on some Greek island (it looks like Mykonos) drinks, feeds a dog and dances as the sun goes down, and he relates to the ordinary Greeks around him.  He has everything but has nothing really ... as a Trash classic it is almost as bad as Lana's LOVE HAS MANY FACES or PORTRAIT IN BLACK or Susan and Bette's WHERE LOVE HAS GONE or VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or those HARLOW films or THE CARPETBAGGERS (Trash label),  not in their league but it will do for now.  Back in 1978 of course I was too much the movie buff to bother with trash like this, but remember it playing at my local cinema.

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA. Bombolini (Anthony Quinn), is the mayor of the hillside village of Santa Vittorio... He is in terrible crisis... Where to hide his precious wine? l,317,000 bottles more or less... as the Germans led by Hardy Kruger advance on their town. Add in Anna Magnani as Bombolini's bitter volatile wife and Virna Lisi as the local Contessa ... and let the heavy hand of Stanley Kramer direct (see SHIP OF FOOLS review below). Was this Hollywood's idea of comedy in 1969 ? More utter trash then as every cliche is dusted down, like the Contessa and the civilised German officer being attracted to each other, her true love is that noble soldier (Sergio Franchi) - it took 2 writers to come up with this from a Robert Crichton novel ?

The wine is hidden in an old Roman cave and has to be hidden so well that the Germans will not find the bottles. When the Germans arrives, it becomes a battle of wits for the possession of the wine. Quinn & Co play Italian by numbers, with lots of local colour - all those 'colorful' Italians and those peasant faces. It is set during the war but there is not even a gunshot here let along anyone killed. The germans just arrive without any local resistance! No wonder Anna looks exasperated making this piece of Hollywood crap.. 1968's BUONA SERA MRS CAMBELL with Lollobrigida, was much more amusing. Quinn had played so many nationalities, Greek on several occasions: ZORBA and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (there is still an 'Anthony Quinn beach' in Rhodes where that war opus was filmed), he had already teamed well with Magnani in Cukor's WILD IS THE WIND in 1957 (Magnani label), and teamed several times with Loren, and Lollo (I loved their 1956 HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME in 1956, when I was a kid.).  This is an overlong way to pass an evening or wet afternoon; not one to keep my copy went straight into the garbage can. Quinn (1915-2001) though was marvellous as that Arab sheik Auda Abu Tayi in Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

F for fake: War of the Volcanoes

One of the items that interested me in the new bulky brochure for the forthcoming London Film Festival (LFF) is a new documentary WAR OF THE VOLANCOES, just 52 minutes, showing with a revival of Rossellini's VIAGGIO IN ITALIA. WAR OF THE VOLANCOES also plays in the NYFF. Here is how our BFI big it up:

A scintillating documentary: a delightfully gossipy combination of film history and romantic soap. Consisting of glorious film clips, black & white and colour archive footage and newsreel, WAR OF THE VOLCANOES plots the '50s scandal surrounding the legendary Italian director Roberto Rossellini's dumping of his star and lover Anna Magnani in favour of a new creative and emotional affair with Swedish-Hollywood icon Ingrid Bergman. The result was tabloid headlines galore, and - stoking them - two rival films in production at the same time on near-adjacent Aeolian islands: VOLCANO starring Magnani, and Rossellini's own STROMBOLI, featuring of course his new muse Bergman. A revealing treat.

Well, if I had paid to see this I would be rather cross, but thankfully it played on one of our Sky Arts tv channels yesterday (and is on several more times next week) ... it is in its way fascinating and rather amusing, but it is a total fake. It takes the well-known story of Bergman leaving the cossetted life of the 1940s Hollywood dream factory in search of realism, which she thought she had found with Rossellini and the film they were making on Stromboli.The director here Francesco Patierno assembles a mix of newsreel footage and clips from the Rossellini-Bergman films to canter through the familiar tale - we also get to see clips of Magnani in action, not only in her VOLCANO film but also others to highlight her distress at Rossellini leaving her. . Like for instance when Bergman's husband come to talk to her, we get a clip of Bergman and Alexander Knox who played her husband in EUROPA '51 - their arguement here is passed off as being relevant to Bergman and Lindstrom discussing their marriage!  All this fakery gets rather much, but thankfully it is quite short at 52 minutes. Talk about "structured reality" as I mentioned below, in A BIGGER SPLASH post! Hopefully this is not a new trend where events or relationships can be re-interpreted by judicious editing of newsreels or movie clips to satisfy the never-ending craving for celebrity gossip ...

Ingrid at the NFT

The good thing about it though is that it reminds us of the value of these Rossellini films. I can still picture Bergman at one of the National Film Theatre events I saw her at, maybe it was a screening of CASABLANCA, reminding us the audience about how these films were dismissed and badly received at the time, but are now genuine classics of the Italian cinema. I saw STROMBOLI as a child and also JOURNEY TO ITALY, which is now finally restored and available (and placed at number 41 in that recent "Sight & Sound" poll - and number 5 in its list of top ten Italian films).  Looking at the scenes in STROMBOLI of Bergman's alienated Karin  approaching the volanco, after witnessing that savage tuna hunt, one is reminded of how these films paved the way for Antonioni - L'AVVENTURA with it's scenes on that remote island, and the angst of Moreau and Vitti in LA NOTTE and L'ECLISSE and the others. I have already reviewed JOURNEY TO ITALY here, see Bergman/Italian labels, and I am now looking forward to getting to EUROPA '51 before too long. 

I have also been meaning to get back to re-see Ingrid's take on Golda Meir in A WOMAN CALLED GOLDA - her final work (when she was quite ill). Ingrid actually had a wonderful sense of humour, (MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, CACTUS FLOWER, INDISCREET, SARATOGA TRUNK)  there is a lot of sly humour in her portrayal of Golda, even the false nose, wig and makeup are quite funny.  And today has another showing of Hitch's UNDER CAPRICORN which I like a lot, with Cardiff's marvellous colour photography. 
(Reviews here too of Bergman's AUTUMN SONATA, and the Italian SIAMO DONNE, those segments with her, Magnani, Alida Valli and Isa Miranda, in 1952).

Alida, Ingrid, Isa, Anna play themselves!

SIAMO DONNE (WE, THE WOMEN). A 1953 Italian compendium of 4 stories, in a nice fresh print. The 4 actresses are Ingrid Bergman, Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Isa Miranda all playing “themselves” in little anecdotes from their lives, and we start with auditions for young beauties for parts in the film.

The first is a nice little satire on stardom as Alida is back from America and bored with all the showbiz parties and events she has to attend. Her masseuse invites her to her engagement party that evening, but Alida has another boring company event to attend; on a whim she leaves and arrives all glamorous at the engagement party, which turns out to be a horror of a different kind. She can’t relax and be natural as the star-struck ordinary people make a fuss of her, demand autographs and bring in everyone to meet her. She grabs her mink stole and flees back to her rarified existence (after imagining she could have a normal life with the masseuse’s fiancé).

Ingrid tells an amusing little story about a neighbour's chicken who keeps eating her roses, and it is a nice fictional snapshot of her life in Italy at the time, directed by Rossellini. Its quite funny seeing Ingrid and the chicken squaring up to each other.



Then we have Isa Miranda dedicated to her career and her lovely apartment and the archive of her achievements but suddenly she has to look after a sick child and his siblings and realises what she is missing as she returns to her lonely apartment.



Then its Anna Magnani’s turn, directed by Visconti (as in BELLISSIMA) as the star always late at the theatre as she gets into an escalating row with her taxi-driver who wants to charge her extra for her lapdog. Then Anna sings wonderfully when she finally gets on stage. I enjoyed it all enormously, and its made me interested in Isa Miranda whom I only saw in her later smaller roles.
Next: back to BOCCACCIO 70 and some early Fellini.

Magnani & Visconti: Bellissima

Antonioni and Vitti, Godard and Karina, Von Sternberg and Dietrich, De Sica and Loren - now add Visconti and Magnani. Funny how some performers shine when back in their native tongue. I have seen several Yves Montand films lately, but he is stilted and unconvincing in English (one only has to remember Pauline Kael's hilarious demolition of his English in ON A CLEAR DAY...] but back in his native languague in a film like LA LOI he is mesmerising. So it is with Anna Magnani - I just did not care for her over the top dramatics in THE ROSE TATTOO when I finally saw it a few years ago, but curiously loved her in Cukor's '57 WILD IS THE WIND, and I also love her in Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH from '53 (one to have another look at, its been years...), now seeing her as Maddelena in Visconti's BELLISSIMA made in '51 (but not released outside Italy until 1953) one is enthralled with every aspect of her performance and the valentine the film is to her. She is the whole show as this poignant, affectionate comedy drama unfolds - her devotion to her little daughter whom she thinks should be in the movies and the various entanglements that ensue with her fending off dramatic teachers, finding the money for haircuts (the child is hilariously passed down to the most junior salon staff who cuts off her plaits), and new material for a dress etc while all the time exasperating her husband and being the centre of gossip to the neighbours in her apartment block. Then there is the chancer at the studio (Walter Chiari, who seems best known as a companion of Ava Gardner's) who takes her money for bribes but treats himself to a new scooter. But Anna realises that money has to be spent.... finally, the daughter is picked and ready for the screen test, to be shown to the great Alessandro Blasetti but of course it all goes wrong with the child crying and the people watching the tests laughing at her, as the proud mother listens up in the projection booth as she faces the cruel truth about the illusion-making cinema industry. After giving them a piece of her mind she takes the daughter home, sadder but wiser, as the studio people change their mind and send a contract - will she sign it? It is all nicely played out and leaves one with a warm glow, and lost in admiration of the great Magnani.

One nice sequence is the outdoor cinema as she and her husband Spartaco, looking fit in his vest, watch Hawk's RED RIVER and one sees the attraction between them - on the documentary he reveals he had no previous acting experience. It is amusing too seeing Anna at work dispensing her injections. The 'Masters of Cinema' dvd is a perfect print with fascinating extras, inclulding a 32 page booklet, and documentaries featuring co-writers (from a story by Cesare Zavattini) director Francesco Rosi and the venerable Suso Cecchi D'Amico [who co-wrote scores of Italian classics and who died aged 96 last year], and also with comments from Franco Zeffirelli on Visconti [I was fascinated to see a favourite picture of Elizabeth Taylor taken by Bob Willoughby on the set of RAINTREE COUNTY (its in my previous post on ET) pinned to Zeffirelli's wall]. The booklet also has a glowing recommendation from Bette Davis! (click image to enlarge).

There is a lovely scene too where she is lovingly shot and looks radiantly beautiful when at her dressing table mirror, and that nice moment as her temper erupts when her mother-in-law's comment causes Anna's shoe to go through a window! The prattle of the stage mothers all trying to push their kids forward is not only funny but still relevant today. Thank goodness no-one came up with the idea of casting Bette Midler in a remake!

Some '50s discoveries...

BUT NOT FOR ME is a neglected gem from that great year 1959 and was a treat to catch recently. Its one of Clark Gable's last films [he had just done TEACHER'S PET with Doris Day, and would next go to Italy for IT STARTED IN NAPLES with Sophia Loren (30 years his junior, but its great fun) and then finally to that MISFITS location]. Here he is guying his older image as the Broadway producer falling for his ambitions young secretary Carroll Baker who also wants to be an actress. Its a comedy set in the theatreland of the '50s and has some nice views of New York back then, particuarly as his car glides through Manhattan in the morning, as Ella sings that great theme song. Best of the cast though is Lilli Palmer enjoying her role as his ex-wife watching on the sidelines. Will she get him back at the end? It's nicely worked out and there is also Lee J Cobb in scenery-chewing mode as a drunken playright. A nice Perlberg-Seaton production from Paramount.

WILD IS THE WIND. Another good discovery is this long unseen George Cukor item from 1957. Anna Magnani is magnetic as the sister from Italy brought to America to marry her late sister's husband, Anthony Quinn in very gruff mode here. Quinn's protege young Anthony Francoisa is the only one to show her affection as she struggles with life on their ranch, which rapidly escalates to a doomed romance. I did not care for Magnani's over the top performance in the acclaimed ROSE TATTOO when I saw it a while ago, but I love her here, as reined in by Cukor. She has a wonderful scene at the outdoor party when she sings a lovely little song, and has a nice scene with young Dolores Hart too. There is also another great theme tune (by Johnny Mathis) and, surprisingly for Cukor, the scenes of capturing wild horses is as forceful as Huston's in THE MISFITS. Anna is of course marvellous in Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH, and its fascinating seeing her with Brando in THE FUGITIVE KIND.

THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE - I did see this MGM comedy from 1958 when young but its a missing title here in the UK and not seen for decades. Its a wonderful as I remembered and - along with GENEVIEVE and LES GIRLS - Kay Kendall's crowning achievement. She is divinely funny and daffy as the diplomat's wife launching his daughter on the London season as a debutante. Add in Angela Lansbury as the catty friend who is also launching her daughter and the stage is set for lots of comedy. Rex Harrison is in his element here and seems enchanted with his new wife in their one main starring film, which at least captures their high comedy style. The youngsters are Sandra Dee and John Saxon (whom I liked then) but they seem pallid now by comparison. It was actually shot mainly in Paris due to Harrison's tax requirements as he was between the US and London runs of MY FAIR LADY, but Minnelli adds the required elements - lots of splashes of yellows and reds (those perfect armchairs and cushions in that perfect apartment) and that perfect shade of green for chairs and lamps. Kay wears her Balmain wardrobe splendidly and has some great moments. Perhaps only Carole Lombard was as glamorous and gifted a comedienne. The play originally featured Celia Johnson and Wilfrid Hyde White (one can just picture them in it) with young Anna Massey as the deb, but with the Harrisons on board it was nicely modernised to make her his second wife and the daughter reared as an American by his first wife. Splendid stuff and ideal for a rainy afternoon. Minnelli had a busy year, he knocked this one out between GIGI and SOME CAME RUNNING!

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1957]. An important movie from my childhood, from when I was first allowed to start going to the cinema on my own, aged about 11. This was marvellous colorful stuff then, widescreen, lots of action and it still looks good now, set around the cathedral of Notre Dame. Anthony Quinn is perfect as Quasimodo and gains one's sympathy while Gina Lollobrigida is sensational and so attractive as Esmerelda. Director Jean Delannoy has a sure hand with the material. That ending with Esmerelda's body being dragged away (with her faithful goat) and Quasimodo following her to the crypt was powerful stuff for the younger me and it still works now.