L'argent de la vieille

Horror! The DVD is released without English subtitles. I've been talking about this superb Italian blackish comedy ever since I saw it for the first time. I was puzzled by the fact that such a beautifully made film, brilliantly written and with a cast that includes Bette Davis, Alberto Sordi, Joseph Cotten and Silvana Mangano wasn't some kind of "cult" classic in the States. It isn't because nobody knows about the existence of this jewel. Now, on DVD I hurried to buy as many copies I could find. What a great present for all those folks in the good old USA that have heard me talk about it and imitate Bette Davis saying "I want to play cards" in her death bed. Imagine my shock when I opened the DVDs to find out they didn't include subtitles. I was livid! I rushed back to the shop to return them. The shop manager, in typical Italian style, shrugged his shoulders like saying "What can I do about it" I'm really disappointed by whoever perpetrated this moronic release without any, if nothing else, commercial sense.

A masterpiece from Luigi Comencini. Another masterpiece of an unrestrained cinema that was (for a very long time) inspired and remarkable; Full, alike life... alike a work of art. Luigi Comencini's 'Lo Scopone Scientifico' is entertaining, funny, touching but also sharp, intelligent and intensely sad; it reflects the conditions of many of us: defeat, ignorance and inequality. It's a radiography on how persistent poverty creates a self-perpetuating cycle within the impoverished classes. It speaks of today's democratic societies! Check it out! You'll be amazed how much (today!) you can read out of this movie...Do you know what happens at this very exact time in our history? I'll say it again, check it out, watch this film, you'll know it. Wake up Folks!

Rome, 1970s. While a few benefit from the wealth of the modern world, many live in misery. Peppino, his wife Antonia and their five children live in a shanty town, populated by all sorts of tramps, pimps and prostitutes, plus a "professor" in disgrace who lectures everyone on the importance of reading and the beauty of Marxism. Every year a millionairess turns up to play cards with Peppino and Antonia, and every year they hope to win enough money to change their lives, not that they would need much, as they have nothing! The villa in which the old woman (la vecchia) lives is stunning, surrounded by the most beautiful roman trees, in stark contradiction with the grey poverty surrounding Peppino's family. The underlying theme of the film is class struggle and how the rich keep teasing the poor with the promise of a better future which never comes. But Comencini is not as bitter as his contemporaries (Monicelli, Petri etc): he celebrates love and humanity, something the old millionaire will never own. Needless to say, the performances are formidable.

It was Bette Davis last great film and in the States we don't even know it exists. I think it was released in secrecy under the title "The Scientific card-player" and if I'm not wrong dubbed in English, I wonder who was the marketing genius behind that move. The film is a tragicomic gem. Bette Davis speaks a few words in English and the very few words in Italian she utters where dubbed but, I swear to you I thought it was her. The work of the dubber is astonishing. Totally seamless. I hear she didn't get along with Alberto Sordi, what a surprise. She referred to him as "Mr. Sordid". But beyond those little trivia things, let me tell you, it's a wonderful film. Alberto Sordi, one of the greatest but practically unknown in the States, gives a sensational performance. A brutally comic, full of pathos tour de force. Silvana Mangano playing an under proletarian is a delight and Joseph Cotten is Joseph Cotten in the loveliest possible way. I haven't mention what the film is about and I'm not going to. I couldn't do it justice. Try to find it somewhere. You'll thank me, but don't bother, the pleasure was all mine.

One of the previous respondents compares Commencini's work on this film to Billy Wilder, and I can't agree more. In fact, this yarn reworks Sunset Boulevard into a full-bodied Italian comedy about how the tyrannical rich use their money to string along the poor and humble.

Remember, there was a card game in Wilder's film too! Here, Bette Davis, as poised, professional, and grandly self-assured as ever, is the Norma Desmond character. She's shrewd, not crazy, but she's got everyone twisting their lives out of shape to humor her in much the same way. Joseph Cotten is the Max von Mayerling character - the artist who threw away a brilliant career to serve this imperious creature. The twist is that Commencini replaces William Holden's wry screenwriter, Joe Gillis, with Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano as the poor couple who've unwittingly staked their lives on whatever they can get from the old lady. Ultimately, of course, it's not just them, but their entire neighborhood who Davis is leading on her merry chase -strictly for her own amusement. The twist at the end is just as perfect, in its own, thoroughly Italian way, as the finale of Wilder's film.

Absolutely delightful - especially the wonderful body (and facial) language of all four principals at the cardtable. They could have kept it up twice as long and it would have been just as amusing. Four expert screen actors, directed to perfection.

Can the bizzers-in-charge PLEASE find a decent print of this and DVD it right away?