La belle Romaine

Grim pastiche of the still overrated misogynist Moravia, starring the incompetent Lollo, whose hallmark pouting manipulations here play neatly into the hands of the male-dominated Italian film industry, then and now. Zampa's emasculated recreation of the unspeakable horrors of Fascism is shameful: a weak scenography by Bassani and lazy transition from an indifferent book, each scene delivered in bite-sized morsels for a smug semi-illiterate Italian audience enjoying the so-called economic boom, now feeling exonerated from their abject mass collaboration with the regime barely a decade earlier. Watchable only for Gélin and the interiors and exteriors of a Rome before the country's colonisation by American-style consumerism in the 1960s, replacing one regime with another.

With the "Duce" still very much in charge of Italy, the young "Adriana" (Gina Lollobrigida) is coasting along in life, using her good looks to attract the attention of "Gino" (Franco Fabrizi) and hoping that they will marry. A casual meeting with aspiring Fascist "Astarita" (Raymond Pellegrin), however, soon puts that plan on the fire - especially as he clearly has designs her himself. She's a bit despondent and turns to the game to make her living. At times she comes across as almost desperate for love, for attention - yep, even sex, but perhaps when she meets "Mino" (Daniel Gélin) she might find some sort of purpose in life? Well the fly in that ointment is that he's a committed anti-Fascist and is known to the authorities. With him taking risks on a daily basis and her in possession of some fairly profound news, is there any hope for redemption for her and happiness for them? This is certainly one of Lollobrigida's better efforts as she tackles this role with quite a degree authenticity. There's virtually no glamour for her to hide behind and she delivers with a rawness as the young woman whose options are largely limited by her looks - a situation common to many women at the time. The choices of men her character makes are maybe not the best but both Gélin and Pellegrin provide solid foils as the story develops juggling romance with elements of politics and crime. It's touching at times, steadily paced and well worth a couple of hours, I'd say.

Bearing in mind that Alberto Moravia's novel 'La Romana' was on the Index of Forbidden Works, any attempt to adapt it for film was bound to be fraught with difficulties. I still have my dog-eared Penguin copy and to be fair to director Luigi Zampa he has done his best to be as faithful as possible to the text. The author collaborated on the script but even with the changes they were obliged to make the film still faced opposition from the Catholic authorities. The controversy certainly did the film no harm at the box office and its first showing at the Venice Film Festival became a media circus.

The critical reaction while not hostile, seemed to suggest that the film had failed to meet expectations and the more positive reviews were saved for Gina Lollobrigida as the title character.

This is certainly La Lollo's most challenging role since that of Gemma in 'La Provinciale' for Mario Soldati and Luigi Zampa has drawn from her what I think is her best performance.

Byron called Beauty 'the fatal gift' and this certainly applies in the case of Adriana. Her mother hopes that her daughter's good looks will bring her a rich husband and security but all it seems to bring is bad fortune and the attentions of Gino who is a rat, Mino, one of Moravia's archetypal intellectuals who is consumed with guilt about his moral cowardice, a fascist official named Astarita and last but not least Sonzogno, a brutish thug.

Daniel Gélin as Mino drew mostly negative reviews but has a difficult role and succeeds in arousing our sympathy for his weakness rather than our contempt. The fascist Astarita is far more sympathetic here than in the novel and Raymond Pellegrin gives an excellent performance. Mention must be made of Pia Piovani who impresses as Adriana's bitter, disillusioned mother.

As expected in Italian cinema there is plenty of dubbing going on but it is generally seamless. There is a strong score by Enzo Masetti.

Zampa has chosen to concentrate on the protagonists here rather than the society and the era around them. This is set in the 1930s but I didn't really have a sense of 'being there'. In this respect it is disappointing but is redeemed by Zampa's obvious skill with actors and the committed performances of his cast.

This film is best characterized as an Italian noir, for it has a special character of its own which is not in the same room as the great Italian neo-realistic masters. It doesn't claim to be neo-realistic either, but it is almost documentary, or would have been, if it didn't enhance the acting of Gina Lollobrigida so much. Of course, she makes a memorable performance, like in those other early films of hers during those years, but her fate as a prostitute under the regime of Mussolini in 1935 comes into the shadow of Gina herself and her personality. The only one to match her personality is her mother, Pina Piovani, who has been through it all before and raised her one child and daughter without a father. Also the four men that refuse to leave her alone fall into her shadow, as they all become obsessively dependent on her and therefore can't manage their own fates - one of them gets murdered by one of the others, and Nino, the most decent of them, the anti-fascist, ends up in an existential blind alley. Gina survives with her one heritage of this sordid life, like her mother, and so the perpetual mobile of life just goes on, and all you can do is to follow or jump off, which after all is the worst thing you can do. The film is beautifully made, it's not neo-realistic or expressionistic, but in the later part there are some very striking scenes, and Alberto Moravia himself, the author of this famous novel, appears to have had a say in the staging. It is indeed worth watching and carefully as a very interesting complement to the already very prominent cinematic art of de Sica, Visconti, Fellini and all the others.

Gina Lollobrigida goes to work as an artist's model in 1930s Rome. She is young, beautiful, and desired by many men, some whom lie to her, like Franco Fabrizi, some who force her, like Raymond Pellegrini, some who threaten her, like Renato Tontini.... and then there's Daniel Gélin.

All of them claim to love her. Will any of them work out? It's a tough, cruel life for a beautiful young woman, surrounded by men who lie to her. Luigi Zampa's drama shares some story-telling techniques from Neo-realism, but it's a glossy studio production that shows off Lollobrigida's beauty and acting talents. Like many movies about hard times for poor women, it harkens to the Japanese shomin-gekkim, the low-class tragedy. Although this doesn't seem to offer any particularly deep message, it's fine commercial film-making, far more telling than the repressed Hollywood weeper of the era