5. The Episode Films part twelve

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernest G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r. 1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Another actor who took up directing was Vittorio Caprioli (born in 1921, with Franca Valeri and Alberto Bonucci, the guiding spirit of the "Teatro dei Gobbi", the first excellent example of Italian cabaret). La manina di Fatma (Fatma's Touch), written by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, is a pungent grotesque, interpreted by Franca Valeri with a fine wickedness (it is the first of the two episodes of I CUORI INFRANTI [BROKEN HEARTS], 1963). ALTA INFEDELITA (HIGH INFIDELITY), made in 1964, was a series of variations on the theme of adultery, in which several reputable directors (Franco Rossi, Elio Petri, Luciano Salce and Mario Monicelli) retrieved with great skill the classical formulas of the old French "pochade" with unfaithful husbands, adulterous wives prone to hasty assignations in the afternoon, lovers hidden in cupboards. Nothing new, but Age, Scarpelli, Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari succeeded in putting out a satirical claw or two with respect to the hypocracy of bourgeois marriage, aided most of all by an outstanding group of Italian and foreign actors: Nino Manfredi in Scandalosa (Scandalous) by Rossi, Charles Aznavour and Clair Bloom in Peccato nel Pomeriggio (Sin In The Afternoon) by Petri, Monica Vitti, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Sergio Fantoni in La sospirosa (The Sob-Sister) by Salce, Ugo Tognazzi, Michele Mercier and Bernard Blier in Gente moderna (Modern Folks) by Monicelli.

5. The Episode Films part eleven

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

For a number of years from 1963 on, episode films increased in a number. Some were shot in haste and reduced the initial narrative situations to superficial vaudeville sketches. In others, instead, the short footage of an episode made it possible to attain effects of concentration and hence results of greater dramatic intensity. Such is the case with L'AMORE DIFFICILE (DIFFICULT AMOURS: 1962), which consisted of the adaptation of four stories by contemporary Italian writers (Ercole Patti, Moravia, Italo Calvino, Mario Soldati) by four neophyte directors: Sergio Sollima, Luciano Lucignani, Alberto Bonucci and Nino Manfredi. The latter, with the help of Fabio Carpi, Giuseppe Orlandini and Ettore Scola on the script, comes up with a minor masterpiece of visual art. A soldier meets a beautiful woman (Fulvia Franco, a former Miss Italy) in a train, woos her and wins her, taking advantage of the well-timed darkness of a tunnel. At the next station the woman gets off and immediately disappears from sight. The little story wouldn't have offered much had it not been supported by an extraordinary "gimmick": the couple does not exchange a word and the beautiful stranger, with her obstinate silence and her polite indifference, doesn't seem to be aware of what the soldier is up to. Manfredi the actor and Manfredi the director merge perfectly in bringing off, ni the full season of "all-talking" films, a story of pure pantomine, coverted into visual rhythm, perfect in its timing and hence of sure comic effect.

5. The Episode Films part ten

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Other episode films "d'autore" (of high quality) appeared in 1962-63 in Italo-French coproductions: LE QUATTRO VERITA (THE FOUR TRUTHS) and ROGOPAG. The first consisted of the modern adaptation of some of the best-known fables by La Fontaine. The only Italian episode was La lepre e la tartaruga (The Hare And The Tortoise) by Alessandro Blasetti, where the director, who also wrote the script with Suso Cecchi D'Amico, turned the "hare" into a very sexy mistress (Sylva Koscina) and the "tortroise" into a sensible wife (Monica Vitti), capable of winning back an unfaithful husband (Rossano Brazzi) with her brains rather than her legs. ROGOPAG took its strange title from the initials of the four directors who had a hand in it: Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Ugo Gregoretti. Aside from the little science-fiction story of Godard and the tragic tale of Pasolini, the other two episodes are part and parcel of the Italian-style comedy. Gregoretti puts his whimsical imagination to work in a caustic caricature of the average consumer (Ugo Tognazzi), conditioned by advertising, and Rossellini deals ironically with an American in Bangkok who pursues and Italian hostess who has bewitched him with her would-be "purity," so that the girl, in order to get rid of him, has no choice but to pretend she is anything but "pure."

5. The Episode Films part nine

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

SIAMO DONNE (WE'RE WOMEN), made in 1953, represented the second experiment suggested by Zavattini. The idea was to bring to the screen the private, lesser known dimension of four famous movie stars, revealing their hidden natures. It began as a sort of "cinema-verite" on the screen tests of unknown actresses to find new faces for the movies and then wound up getting personal confessions out of Ingrid Bergman, Isa Miranda, Alida Valli and Anna Magnani. Here too the results were far different from the premises: the four episodes ended up as distinct, well-constructed stories, which had nothing of the spontaneous and indiscreet confessions of the original plan. Particularly worthy of note, with its pungent satire of wartime Rome, the episode in which Anna Magnani gets into a quarrel with a cab-driver that keeps getting more and more people involved. The director was Luchino Visconti.

In 1959, Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA (THE SWEET LIFE) was essentially an episode film with an evident inner unity. A couple of years later, the director answered the attacks launched by certain moralists against his film with the episode, Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio (The Temptations of Dr. Antonio), included in BOCCACCIO '70. Peppino De Filippo was the stern defender of morals who unleashes a campaign against an immense billboard advertisement showing a sexy Anita Ekberg in the same low-cut evening dress she wore in the famous Fontana di Trevi sequence of LA DOLCE VITA. At night, however, Anita comes down from the billboard, becomes flesh and blood and pursues her accuser who ends up in an insane asylum. Aside from the above-mentioned La riffa (The Raffle) by De Sica, the rest of the film consisted of Renzo e Luciana (Renzo and Luciana) by Mario Monicelli, written by Suso Cecchi D'Amico, the director and two first-rate writers like Giovanni Arpino and Italo Calvino, which criticized with apparent charm, but underlying harshness, the <> of industrial society which prevents a couple of newly-weds from living the intimacy of their marriage in peace, and Il lavoro (The Job), by Visconti, a rather "nasty" comedy of manners about a wife who, to get even with her husband who has been unfaithful to her with a prostitute, puts a fee on her own "services".

5. The Episode Films part eight

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Cesare Zavattini, that motivating force in all seasons of new ideas for the Italian cinema, tried to exploit the formula of the episode film for several films half-way between the inquiry and the documentary. AMORE IN CITTA (LOVE IN THE CITY) was the first in a series and the intention of continuing it was apparent in the sub-title, Rivisita cinematografica n. 1 (Film Review No. 1). Taking the common theme of love in its various accepted meanings and nuances, a group of new directors was supposed to "explore" the emotions of a city, Rome of course. What happened instead was that each one went his seperate way, some undertaking an authentic inquiry, others telling a completely invented story, still others simply going through the streets armed with a motion-picture camera. The latter was the case with Alberto Lattuada in the episode Gli Italiani si voltano (Italians Turn To Look), a sort of "cinema-verite" exercise which catches the reactions of Roman males when a beautiful girl passes by. Un'agenzi matrimoniale (A Matrimonial Agency), an episode entirely constructed in the studio with unknown actors, was a "fake inquiry" conducted by Federico Fellini in the sad, shoddy world of those agencies which arrange (or try to arrange) marriages between shy and lonely people. This is the first indication of that "fictional" cinema, with the appearances of a documentary, that Fellini would later develop in I CLOWNS (THE CLOWNS), ROMA (ROME) and PROVA D'ORCHESTRA (ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL). But the best episode was Paradiso per quattro ore (Paradise For Four Hours) which revealed the talents of Dino Risi as a fond and ironic observer of the common people who spend their Saturdays at a "balera" (a popular dance hall which has nothing to do with the luxury of a night club or the rowdy modernity of the discotheque).

5. The Episode Films part seven

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

For a few years, episode films were almost a fad. Producers turned out one film after the other of unequal value, each one of which sought to weave a unifying thread: the revocation of Italy between the 19th and early 20th century, retracing the path opened by Blasetti with ALTRI TEMPI (OLDEN TIMES): CENTO ANNI D'AMORE (A HUNDRED YEARS OF LOVE: 1954) by Lionello De Felice; a series of love stories, each set in a particular historical moment: AMORE DI MEZZO SECOLO (A HALF CENTURY OF LOVE: 1953) by, among others, Rossellini and Pietro Germi; the recollection of old-time theater: GRAN VARIETA (VAUDEVILLE: 1954) by Domenico Paolella; popular songs as the representatives and reflections of the customs and tastes of a given period: CANZONI DI MEZZO SECOLO (A HALF CENTURY OF SONGS: 1952) and CANZONI, CANZONI, CANZONI (SONGS, SONGS, SONGS: 1953) by Domenico Paolella.

5. The Episode Films part six

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Franciolini followed VILLA BORGHESE with RACCONTI ROMANI (ROMAN TALES) in 1956. Franciolini, who died prematurely at the age of 50, was a cultivated and well-prepared director, but an improviser. Between VILLA BORGHESE and RACCONTI ROMANI the progress is evident. The director was interested in contriving a narrative structure that combined the fragmentariness of the episode film with an underlying unity. From the book of the same name by Alberto Moravia, which contained sixty-one stories, Franciolini, with Sergio Amidei, chose only eight and instructed the script-writers to knit them together in such a way as to form a single story divided into eight episodes. Which resulted in a vigorous return to the world of those young people from the working-class suburbs that had kindled the imagination of Castellani in SOTTO IL SOLE DI ROMA (UNDER THE SUN OF ROME). The males are all good-looking and loafers: Alvaro, the leader of the gang (Antonio Cifariello), Otello, fishmonger, Mario, waiter, Spartaco "er bassetto" ("Shortie"), barber's apprentice. All of them try to make money with a series of bright ideas, regularly doomed to failure, even to the point of planning the "big job," the swindle that will set them up for life. Their girl friends, instead, are hard workers, with their heads on their shoulders, and end up convincing the boys to change their ways. The motifs are the same as to be found in POVERI MA BELLI (POOR BUT GOOD-LOOKING) and similar films, but they are explored more thoroughly by the script which seeks to say something about that generation of Romans (aside from Moravia, the scirpt was signed by Amidei, Age, Scarpelli and the future director Francesco Rosi). The result was a spirited, rowdy and jaunty film where Totò also had the chance to be seen as a certain "Professor" Semprini, a consultant (in jail) in the art of swindling. Franciolini's last experiment in this direction, RACCONTI D'ESTATE (SUMMER TALES: 1958), was more commonplace. Based on an idea by Alberto Moravia, it revolved about a world already highly exploited in films: the world of bathers and life on the beach.

5. The Episode Films part five

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment
In 1953, along the lines of the episode film of literary origins inaugurated by ALTRI TEMPI (OLDEN TIMES), Gianni Franciolini came out with VILLA BORGHESE. The unity of the film was created by the setting, the magnificent park in the heart of Rome. The six episodes, based on stories by Sergio Amidei, Giorgio Bassani, Ennio Flaiano and Ercole Patti, were arranged chronologically and strung together in such a way as to give the picture of a typical day in the park, from dawn to dusk. The stories were given an almost documentary cast in a realistic representation of a certain environment. The mood ranged from the delicate pathos of Il Paraninfo (The Pander), from a story by Bassini, about the marriage negotiations between two provincial parents and the arrogant uncle of a possible bridegroom over a girl who is pretty but lame and tremendously neurotic, to the rich irony of Flaiano in Serve e Soldati (Maids and Soldiers).

5. The Episode Films part four

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

In building up the image of actress Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica undoubtedly played an important role. After the dramatic LA CIOCIARA (THE CIOCIARA GIRL, U.S. title: TWO WOMEN), which is of no interest here, he carried forth, always with the help of a Zavattini script, the figure inaugurated by the "pizzaiola," adding brilliant new touches in La Riffa (The Raffle), the first episode of BOCCACCIO '70, a risque story located in Romagna during a village fair, where a woman of the "shooting gallery" is secretly put up for auction, but, being in love with a young swain, refuses in the end to give herself to the winner. The slightly acrid story abounds in peasant humor and could not be understood outside that particular geographic framework. IERI, OGGI, DOMANI (YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW: 1963) shows Sophia Loren in three different roles: Adelina in the first episode, written by Eduardo De Filippo, Anna in the second, based on a Moravia short story, Maria in the third, written by Zavattini. Particularly memorable was Adelina, which describes the curious situation, based on a true story, of a common woman in Naples, married to a longshoreman and a clandestine vendor of smuggled cigarettes, who, in order to avoid being arrested, takes advantage of the deferment of sentence provided for by the law for anyone expecting a child. So that if Adelina wants to stay out of jail, she is forced to have one baby after the other. The last episode film directed by De Sica on a script by Zavattini was WOMEN TIMES SEVEN/SETTE VOLTE DONNA (1967), but it was a vehicle for seven different cameo performances by Shirley MacLaine.

5. The Episode Films part three

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Another episode film directed by De Sica on a script by Zavattini, IL GIUDIZIO UNIVERSALE (THE LAST JUDGEMENT: 1961), was more controversial. Returning to the symbolic, fairy-tale humor of his beginnings, Zavattini imagined that one day, in Naples, a mysterious voice announced from heaven the imminent end of the world and the subsequent Last Judgement. The various stories showed how each one reacted to the situtation, some believeing it, some not believing, others not caring. There is the waiter (Nino Manfredi) who gets even with the people who have always mortified him, the little boy who "jeers" at the priggish gentleman in his fedora hat (Vittorio Gassman), the two men out of work whose only concern is finding a modest job at the Opera (Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia). The most polished episode is the one played by an unwonted Alberto Sordi in the role of a sinister trafficker in little children.