The Scopone Game

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.

Poverty and wealth confront each other over a (not very) friendly game of cards in this often nerve-wracking black social comedy. From her luxurious Italian villa overlooking the ghettos of Rome, a rich, miserly American widow extends her annual invitation to a poor young local couple for an evening of Scopone, the regional variant of bridge. Every year it's the same story: the old widow lends them money before ruthlessly winning it back, building their anticipation and then dashing their hopes for victory and a quick fortune. But this year the desperate Italian couple has been practicing their strategy, unaware that their pragmatic young daughter has been doing likewise, with different motives and with chilling consequences. The casting of Hollywood veterans Bette Davis and Joseph Cotton is relatively meaningless since their voices have been (poorly) dubbed into Italian, but the film is both sharp and lively, and the climactic showdown at the card table generates surprising intensity, too much to be simply funny.

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?

nice, sad, predictable. gray, salted, seductive. a great cast. an ordinary story. crumbs from Visit of Old lady. and scene for extraordinary performance. a film about laws of poverty and people as toys. about power, cruelty and different worlds. about a game as root of so many feelings, emotions, hopes. and about the cold death of dreams. it can be a parable. or slice from reality. in fact, it is itself. a picture of a place. few characters. Bette Davis , Silvana Mangano , Joseph Cotten and irresistible Alberto Sordi around a table, playing cards. so, a meeting. a rite. shadow of life ashes. and strange image about your world. because it can be, in many senses, a manifesto. not about sins or fall, but about borders of gestures. cold, nice, seductive, bitter. a source of reflection. and testimony about a way without end.