86% (3)  Rocco and His Brothers  177 min,  Not Rated,  [Crime, Drama, Sport]  [Luchino Visconti]  [26 Jun 1961]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 83%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 92%,   Metacritic: 84%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 10 wins & 7 nominations.
Actors:  Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Katina Paxinou, Renato Salvatori
Writer:  Luchino Visconti (story), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (story), Vasco Pratolini (story), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (screenplay and dialogue), Pasquale Festa Campanile (screenplay and dialogue), Massimo Franciosa (screenplay and dialogue), Enrico Medioli (screenplay and dialogue), Luchino Visconti (screenplay and dialogue), Giovanni Testori (inspired by episodes in the novel "Il ponte della Ghisolfa")
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  The widow Rosaria moves to Milano from Lucania with her 4 sons, one of whom is Rocco. The fifth son, Vincenzo, already lives in Milano. In the beginning, the family has a lot of problems, but everyone manages to find something to do. Simone is boxing, Rocco works in a dry cleaners, and Ciro studies. Simone meets Nadia, a prostitute, and they have a stormy affair. Then Rocco, after finishing his military service, begins a relationship with her. A bitter feud ensues between the two brothers, which will lead as far as murder...
Rotten Tomatoes:   Luchino Visconti's operatic masterpiece tells the story of the Parondis, a poor family from a village in southern Italy who come to Milan seeking a better life. Following the death of her husband, proud Rosaria (Katina Paxinou) picks up stakes and moves to the city with four of her sons: Simone (Renato Salvatori), Rocco (Alain Delon), Ciro (Max Cartier), and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi). Awaiting them in Milan is her oldest son, Vincenzo (Spiros Focas), who himself is preoccupied with his impending nuptials to the beautiful Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale). Divided into chapters focused loosely on each brother, the movie chronicles the Parondis' struggle to get by, as the brothers take odd jobs and the family endures life in a cramped tenement. Much of the movie's second half deals largely with Simone and Rocco. The loutish Simone eventually finds success as a boxer, and the family soon moves to a better neighborhood. Meanwhile, Rocco gets drafted by the military, and becomes a successful boxer himself upon his return. Complications arise when Nadia (Annie Girardot), a prostitute, enters their lives. Simone falls in love with Nadia first; however, Rocco eventually becomes the object of her affection. Simone's obsession with Nadia and his rapidly deteriorating behavior ultimately threaten to bring the family to ruin, even as the saintly Rocco tries to save his brother. At the peak of Rocco's success, Simone commits a crime that cruelly dashes Rocco's hopes of keeping the family together.
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77% (3)  Burn!  112 min,  GP,  [Action, Drama]  [Gillo Pontecorvo]  [21 Oct 1970]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 74%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 85%,   Metacritic: 72%,   External Reviews
Awards:  3 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors:  Dana Ghia, Evaristo Márquez, Marlon Brando, Renato Salvatori
Writer:  Franco Solinas (story), Giorgio Arlorio (story), Franco Solinas (screenplay), Giorgio Arlorio (screenplay), Norman Gant (based on novels by)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian, Portuguese, English    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Sir William Walker (Marlon Brando) is the aristocratic secret agent sent by Britain to secure a profitable Portuguese sugar cane plantation for the Crown. When he arrives, he befriends the black dockworker Jose (Evaristo Marquez) and plants revolutionary ideas in his head. Walker talks Jose into robbing a bank and builds him up as a national hero in the process. Teddy Sanchez (Renato Salvatori) is the hotel desk clerk with political aspirations who falls under Walker's spell. The blacks revolt on the night of a festival parade that allows them to be disguised and move around without suspicion. Jose turns his troops over to Teddy, who assumes control of the island. Walker returns to Britain but is summoned ten years later to stop a revolution led by Jose against the now corrupt government headed by Teddy. British troops attack the island and hundreds are killed including Teddy who is executed for treason. The sugar cane crops perish in flames when Jose mounts an attack against the British. When William offers him freedom, Jose refuses by stating "freedom is something you take for yourself." Jose is assassinated and becomes yet another martyr for the cause against colonialism. A drunk and despondent William prepares to leave the island realizing he is just as much a pawn as the men he initially incited to revolt.
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84% (2)  Big Deal on Madonna Street  106 min,  Not Rated,  [Comedy, Crime]  [Mario Monicelli]  [02 Oct 1958]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 80%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 89%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 4 nominations.
Actors:  Marcello Mastroianni, Memmo Carotenuto, Renato Salvatori, Rossana Rory, Vittorio Gassman
Writer:  Agenore Incrocci (story), Furio Scarpelli (story), Agenore Incrocci (screenplay), Furio Scarpelli (screenplay), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (screenplay), Mario Monicelli (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian    Country:  Italy
Plot:  Peppe, formerly a boxer, organizes the break-in of a pawnshop. Tiberio, an unemployed photographer, Mario, a receiver, the Sicilian Michele and Capannelle, an ex-jockey, are the other members of the gang. Though they are advised by Dante, a retired burglar, the task is not so easy...
Rotten Tomatoes:   Director Mario Monicelli delivers this deft satire of the classic caper film Rififi, introducing a bungling group of amateurs -- including an ex-jockey (Carlo Pisacane), a former boxer (Vittorio Gassman) and an out-of-work photographer (Marcello Mastroianni). The crew plans a seemingly simple heist with a retired burglar (Totó), who serves as a consultant. But this Italian job is doomed from the start.
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81% (1)  The Organizer  126 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama, History]  [Mario Monicelli]  [01 Jan 1963]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 81%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 6 wins & 8 nominations.
Actors:  Folco Lulli, Gabriella Giorgelli, Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori
Writer:  Agenore Incrocci (story), Furio Scarpelli (story), Mario Monicelli (story), Agenore Incrocci (screenplay), Furio Scarpelli (screenplay), Mario Monicelli (screenplay)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian    Country:  Italy, France, Yugoslavia
Plot:  The story of exploited textile factory workers in Turin, Italy at the turn of the century and their beginnings of their fight for better working conditions. Professor Sinigaglia (Marcello Mastroianni) is sent by (presumably) the Socialists to help them organize their strike and give form to their struggle.
Rotten Tomatoes:   The Organizer (I Compagni) takes a gritty, near-documentary approach to its subject matter: the exploitation of Italian laborers in the 19th century. Shorn of all his studio-imposed glamour, Marcello Mastrioanni plays a Genoan political refugee visiting a friend in Turin. Appalled by the horrible working conditions in the town's textile mill, Mastrioanni stays on to organize the workers in a strike. Though he is nearly killed several times, Mastrioanni survives to set an example for the workers, who rally together into a powerful union. The fact that Marcello Mastrioanni was bearded and bespectacled in the manner of a Bolshevist radical was enough for The Organizer to be condemned by certain extreme anti-Communist elements in Hollywood--to no avail, since the film was nominated for an American Oscar, and even given a commendation by the ultraconservative National Board of Review.
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79% (1)  State of Siege  120 min,  [Drama, Thriller]  [Costa-Gavras]  [08 Feb 1973]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 79%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 2 wins & 4 nominations.
Actors:  Jacques Weber, O.E. Hasse, Renato Salvatori, Yves Montand
Writer:  Franco Solinas, Costa-Gavras (original scenario), Franco Solinas (original scenario)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France, Italy, West Germany
Plot:  In Uruguay in the early 1970s, an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods) is kidnapped by a group of urban guerillas. Using his interrogation as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerillas.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Like most of Costa-Gavras' political thrillers, the French State of Siege is based on a true story. The incident dramatized herein is the kidnapping of a U.S. official somewhere in Latin America. The director's sympathies clearly lie with the kidnappers, especially since the official (played by Yves Montand), ostensibly an expert in traffic control, has been assigned as special advisor to the government's secret police, training these worthies in the art of the torturing of political prisoners. Uruguay was the country where this story actually took place; though no names are given, there's little doubting the identity of Costa-Gavras' fictional locale. Despite its up-to-date radicalism, State of Siege adheres to time-honored Hollywood formula, with ugly, vulgar bad guys vs. handsome, articulate good guys.
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76% (1)  A Brief Vacation  112 min,  PG,  [Drama, Romance]  [Vittorio De Sica]  [09 Feb 1975]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 76%,   External Reviews
Awards:  6 wins.
Actors:  Daniel Quenaud, Florinda Bolkan, José María Prada, Renato Salvatori
Writer:  Rodolfo Sonego (story), Cesare Zavattini
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian    Country:  Italy, Spain
Plot:  A women lives a miserable life in the basement of her Milan apartment, with her boring inlaws and three children (boys). Her husband has been injured. Her bleak life takes an unexpected turn when she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and has to go to a sanatorium in the Italian Alps. At the medical clinic in Milan she meets young mechanic with the similar health problems. At the sanatorium she meets again the same man and they start a passionate love affair. All good things must come to an end. When she is cured, she has to return to that rathole from which she only briefly emerged.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Vittorio De Sica's A Brief Vacation (Una Breva Vacanza) stars Florinda Bolkan as a downtrodden working woman. Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, Bolkan contracts tuberculosis. She is granted a brief vacation at a health spa, where a whole new world--and potential new life--is opened up to her. A Brief Vacation was scripted by the prolific Cesar Zavattini, who like De Sica had once been a guiding force in the Italian neorealist movement. Though not De Sica's final film, A Brief Vacation was the last of the director's work to be released in America. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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65% (1)  Le glaive et la balance  131 min,  [Crime, Drama]  [André Cayatte]  [01 Feb 1963]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 65%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win.
Actors:  Anthony Perkins, Jean-Claude Brialy, Pascale Audret, Renato Salvatori
Writer:  André Cayatte, Henri Jeanson, Charles Spaak
External Links:  Wikipedia  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France, Italy
Plot:  A boy is kidnapped and murdered on the French Riviera. The police, who had watched the delivery of the ransom to TWO men give chase once they determine that the boy is dead. The police ...
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