Hier, aujourd'hui et demain

Italian anthology comedy starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. It's often cited as one of the best films of both stars. There are three stories involving different couples, each played by Loren and Mastroianni. The first has Sophia as a wife who keeps getting pregnant to avoid a jail sentence. It's an amusing story, although it goes on a little long. The second story is about a rich married woman taking a drive with her lover. The segment is pretty dull as it builds up to its punchline. But I suppose that was the point, to make you thing this was an inane soap opera story about whether this woman will choose fortune or love. The question is answered humorously enough but this is still the weakest story in the film. The third story, and the one for which the movie is probably most famous, has Sophia playing a prostitute. Her neighbor's grandson, about to become a priest, falls for Sophia and she must try to set him back on the right path. But, in doing so, she makes a vow that frustrates lustful client Marcello. Sophia's never looked sexier than here and her striptease is legendary.

Of the three stories, the last is the most entertaining but none are bad. Sophia is beautiful and enchanting. She and Marcello are both fun in every segment. It's an enjoyable film, though probably much more so if you are a big fan of Italian cinema to begin with.

This very enjoyable film may be a let down for someone expecting the heights of De Sica's Neorealist masterpieces like The Bicycle Thief or Two Women. However it is very funny in parts and is pointedly critical of Italian society in the boom years of the 1960s. Also Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are absolutely stunning to watch.

For people interested in Italy it is a fascinating commentary on the country that can border on stereotype. Naples (De Sica's hometown) is warm and happy and filled with clever types ready to outwit the system and find their own way to happiness. Milan is cold, rich, and callous. Rome is dominated by the Catholic church and the State with plenty of hypocrisy and corruption. But De Sica finds some humor in all of this.

I found it a little too sentimental but well worth watching. I wish a better (undubbed) print were available. De Sica's career was given a boost by the success of the movie and he would continue to make more great films like The Garden of the Finzi-Contini's and the underrated A Brief Vacation that focus on the injustices of the State and the hardships faced by working people.

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is a romantic comedy, which consists of three stories set in different parts of Italy. All three stories are framed in a romantic farce, which examines relationships through common life issues, such as poverty, adultery, sex and religion.

Stories about three very different women and the men they attract.

Adelina sells black-market cigarettes in Naples. Her husband is unemployed. She tries to avoid a jail sentence at any cost.

In Milan, Anna drives a Rolls, is bored, and picks up a writer, who is her lover. She talks dreamily of running off with him until he dents her car. After that, she shows her true face.

Mara, who works as a prostitute from her apartment in Rome, turns the head of a naive seminarian. After talking with his grandmother, she wants to help a young man, while her nervous client from Bologna impatiently waiting.

A male protagonist is exposed to tragicomic sobering, while a female protagonist is in a kind of inner conflicts, in each of the three stories. That's the point. The different characters of people are exposed to very strange situations, through which they question their relationships.

The scenery is very impressive, especially in the first story. That Neapolitan atmosphere in explosion of colors in a narrow streets is truly remarkable. The dialogues are, here and there, trivial and empty. Humor is somewhat forced, but it's pretty luscious. Characterization is not bad at all.

Sophia Loren (Adelina Sbaratti, Anna Molteni and Mara) is a temperamental and brave housewife, an elegant and selfish rich woman and a sensitive prostitute who would talk about morality. Yes, Ms. Loren looks divine in each of these women.

Marcello Mastroianni (Carmine Sbaratti, Renzo and Augusto Rusconi) is a fertile, but useless husband, a cautious lover and an impatient client, who can not accept the fact that he's in love with a beautiful prostitute. Mr. Mastroianni is mostly a muddled and confused character in each of the three stories.

I will say that this is another successful commedia all'italiana

1963's "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" was, like the previous year's "Boccaccio 70," another anthology feature, this time featuring Sophia Loren with her most frequent leading man, Marcello Mastroianni, starring in all three stories for director Vittorio De Sica. In "Adelina" they are a married couple living in a poverty stricken section of Naples, where she must dodge arrest for nonpayment on furniture by way of pregnancy; "Anna" finds her a bored socialite wed to an often absent industrialist who ultimately chooses wealth over love to Mastroianni's disappointment; and in "Mara" she plays a high priced call girl who vows to spend a week without sex to convince the young man next door to follow the call of the priesthood. Her final reel striptease remains the stuff of legend but is quite tame today, the actress considering it a most pleasing, natural performance. As a 1963 Oscar winner as Best Foreign Film it was a huge success, with both stars reuniting with De Sica for their next picture, "Marriage Italian Style."

"Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" was just the kind of crowd-pleasing, feel-good foreign film that appealed to American audiences and the Academy in 1964. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the second De Sica film to win in that category after "Bicycle Thieves". Of course, this isn't in the same class as that neo-realist masterpiece. It comprised of three short stories, each starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. In the first she is the wife who avoids prison by getting pregnant; in the second she is a rich socialite having an affair with Mastroianni's writer, that is until he crashes her Rolls while in the third she's a Roman prostitute forced into taking a vow of chastity for a week but not beyond doing the striptease that earned the film its reputation for 'sauciness' and each story is named after the character played by Loren. It's all very jolly, sunny and likable but it's hardly Oscar material. Sophia, however, is splendid throughout.