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Thursday, May 19, 2022

IT STARTED IN NAPLES (1960)

Trying on Hollywood for size in 1957*, Sophia Loren stuck it out thru a fistful of forgettable films before fleeing.  (De Sica’s TWO WOMEN/’60 and Anthony Mann’s EL CID/’61 coming to the rescue.)  This light romance, pure Hollywood in spite of handsome VistaVision lensing from Robert Surtees on location in Naples, is typical of the misuse.  Clark Gable, in his penultimate role, plays an American lawyer passing thru the city to settle his black sheep of a brother’s estate and finding complications: specifically, the dead man's son, a cute tyke being raised by Zia Sophia.  You’ll guess the rest though Gable gamely finesses the ending to suit his age.  It’s why the heart-tugging train station climax writer/director Melville Shavelson (improving on similar duties for Loren & Cary Grant in HOUSEBOAT/’58) lifted from Billy Wilder’s May/December LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON/’57 for Audrey Hepburn & Gary Cooper plays out not between the leads but between Gable & Nephew.  Harmless and less Ugly American than you expect (Gable’s savvy tourist is quick to catch on to the local customs), the main takeaway is noting that Gable and Vittorio De Sica, expertly playing his voluble Italian lawyer, were both born in 1901.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Naturally, the one project in the bunch still worth watching was also the biggest flop, George Cukor’s sui generis theatrical Western, HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS/’60.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/02/heller-in-pink-tights-1960.html  

(Use the search engine on the Full Site to check out other Loren Hollywood pics.)

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