RAF VALLONE & ANTHONY PERKINS 1962 • Phaedra • dir. Jules Dassin

Raf Vallone-Lucia bosé "No hay paz bajo los olivos" (Non c´è pace tra gli ulivi) 1950, de Giuseppe de Santis.

Summertime Killer (1972)

Silvana Pampanini et Raf Vallone en Vespa devant le Colisée, 1955. - Source Roma X Sempre.

THE GODFATHER PART III 1990

When they come... they come at what you love.

16-year-old Sophia Loren in one of her first uncredited roles.

In the early 1950s Sophia Loren was mostly working as a background actor. She had already done "Quo Vadis" (1950) but she, along with her mother, Romilda Villani, were just another face in the crowd.

"Anna" (1950) is one of Sophia's first speaking parts though she was uncredited, and possibly dubbed which was common in Italy around that time (later in her career, Sophia would actually do her own dubbing). The film starred Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone and Vittorio Gassman, and was directed by Alberto Lattuada -- who according to biographer Warren G. Harris, liked Sophia so much he gave her lines.

Sophia played a nightclub assistant and her role only gets a few seconds of screen time but it would not only introduce her to American audiences, as the film was a big hit at the time, but it would also set her up with future co-stars Raf Vallone ("Two Women" (1960) and "El Cid" (1961)) and Vittorio Gassman ("Questi fantasmi" (1967)).

A View from the Bridge (1962) dir. Sidney Lumet

Bitter Rice (Riso amaro) (1949) Giuseppe De Santis

December 6th 2023

Statt Bibelspektakel zur Abwechslung mal ein Ritterspektakel mit Charlton Heston. Der prinzipientreue El Cid eint seinem zweifelhaften König zum Trotz die Spanier samt verständigen Mauren gegen Islamistische Welteroberungspläne. So ist recht! Nur die gute Sophia hat nicht so recht was von ihm. Am Ende ist er tot, aber legendär und reitet dem Sonnenuntergang entgegen, in Technicolor und ..hm.. Supertechnirama.

The Girl in Room 2A

Is every Italian thriller a giallo? Vinegar Syndrom released William L. Rose’s THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A (aka LA CASA DELLA PAURA, 1974, Shudder) in its FORGOTTEN GIALLI series, but I’m hard-pressed to find many similarities to giallo classics like BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) or THE BIRD WITH CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970). It doesn’t have the super-saturated dark colors of those films but rather is shot in bright, sunshiny EastmanColor. The score, though eclectic, doesn’t have the brooding intensity of most films in the genre. There’s no past trauma motivating the action. It’s really more like Nancy Drew with naked bosoms. An unjustly imprisoned ex-convict (Daniela Giordano) is sent to room with a widow (Giovanna Galletti) and her hunky if emotionally backwards son (Angelo Infanti). After having strange nightmares about a menacing figure in a red hood, she meets a man (Jack Scanlon) whose sister committed suicide after staying in the same room, so they have sex, because she has a nice body the filmmakers want to show off. This all ties into a cult led by Raf Vallone, who’s out to punish people for their sins, sort of. There’s only one scene that comes within spitting distance of a classic giallo, when Giordano sneaks into Infanti’s workroom, where she’s surrounded by mannequin parts, but it’s hardly as stylish as something Mario Bava or Dario Argento would have done. Perhaps it falls short in that area because it was made by Americans (Rose and producer Dick Randall) who specialized in exploitation pictures. The film starts out as a diverting little mystery only to get rather silly at the end. When the cult kidnaps Giordano, Scanlon rides to the rescue in a Volkswagen Beetle, which just looks funny. And the skinny Scanlon keeps beating up the baddies while his muscular buddy (peplum star Brad Harris) looks on. The strangest thing about the film, however, is the fact that it’s mostly dubbed (poorly) into English, but there are scenes in Italian in which the voices sound very different from those in the dubbed version. Vinegar Syndrome has advertised their release as the most complete version of the film in existence (and if that excites you, let’s hope they never uncover the original cuts of GREED or THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, for fear that might kill you). I’m guessing the American version that played mostly at drive-ins and in grindhouses had been cut, and no dubbed version of those scenes exists.

Gina Lollobrigida-Raf Vallone "Cuori senza frontiere) 1950, de Luigi Zampa.

Kino Lorber has revealed that they plan to release on 4K Blu-ray Peter Collinson's The Italian Job (1969), starring Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, and Tony Beckley. The release is expected to arrive on the market early next year.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 361 – The Italian Job (1969)

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 361 – The Italian Job (1969)

https://soundcloud.com/eavesdroppingatthemovies/361-the-italian-job-1969 Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. The Italian Job is a classic British caper familiar to everyone who’s grown up in the UK, so often has it been shown on telly and so embedded in British culture is the iconography of the red, white and blue Minis, the chase through Turin, only…

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watching phaedra and melina mercouri's voice just sends me each time she speaks..... and now i'm remembering that some time ago i've made the same post about katherine hepburn's voice. it's over for women