The Gold of Naples (De Sica, 1954): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 2.50pm
This 4K screening (also being shown on August 14th) is part of the Sophia Loren season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.
Film Forum review:
L’oro di Napoli (1954, Vittorio De Sica) Six stories set in De Sica’s father's hometown: street performer Totò (The Passionate Thief) lays flowers on the capo’s wife’s grave, then returns home to his own wife and three boys — and il guappo
who’s taken over his household for the past ten years; when voluptuous
20-year-old pizza purveyor Sophia Loren loses the emerald ring given to
her by her nervously tubby husband — in the dough? — they comb the quartiere
for the day’s customers, including suicidal Paolo Stoppa, in hysterical
mourning for his just-deceased wife; Teresa De Vita carries off the
“Funeralino” of her small child along the Bay of Naples;
tightly-reined-in compulsive gambler Count De Sica (an out-of-control
gambler in private life) finds a formidable opponent in his doorman’s
shrewd but bored 7-year-old son; working girl Silvana Mangano finds, out
of nowhere, her dreams coming true: marriage with a handsome,
prosperous middle class man — or is something else coming true?; a local
wisdom dispenser, legendary Neapolitan playwright and actor Eduardo De
Filippo (see Marriage Italian Style and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow), advises on such things as the get-off-easy way to razor-slash a cheek and the proper delivery of a full-blooded, communal pernacchio
to a despised duke. The granddaddy and gold standard of European
omnibus films, adapted from stories by Giuseppe Marotta (and scripted
with Marotta by De Sica and longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini),
runs the gamut from pure farce to outright tragedy, with Loren’s
gyrating walk in the rain her star-making moment.
Here (and above) is an extract.
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