La Loi

I saw it and I think that is very good, but my VHS is in English and I would like to get a DVD with Spanish subtitles. Gina Lollobrigida is my favorite actress, so I would like to see this film again ad so to understand like must be. I am sorry because my English is not good. Anothers Gina DVD that I want to get are:Trapeze, The hung back of Notre Dame, Buona Sera, Mrs. Cambel, King, Queen and Valet, Salomon and Sheeba, Beautiful but Dangerous, Fanfan La Tulipe,Come September,Bread, Love and dreams, Bred, love an jealous, Alia, Wife for a night,The Lonely woman. woman of Straw, Go naked in the world and if is possible, a book called Imperial Gina.Thanks you.

I really enjoyed watching The Law. The storyline was great, and I loved the occasional tidbits that were so unexpectedly hilarious. The theme about who was really considered "the law" and the person with all the power was extremely entertaining. Gina Lollabrigida (Marietta) was fantastic! I loved her character's attitude. She knew what she wanted, and she knew how to get what she wanted. The many different plots and characters were all very enjoyable and interesting. And in the end, it is very clear who the person is that has all the power in the city.

I absolutely loved the movie and was highly entertained! I'm so glad that it's finally being distributed for a wide release in the US! There's love, sex, power, drama, and death! with the occasional hilarity and musical number. What more could you ask for in a movie?

(1958) Law/ La legge (In French with English subtitles) DRAMA

"Law" as the movie is called is a type of game this small village sometimes plays, and yet somehow echoes like this in real life. Based on a novel written by Roger Vailland, which takes place in a Mediterranean community, where jobs are scarce and the people living their appear to help one another. The movie has film veteran, Marcello Mastroianni as Enrico Tosso which they nickname l'agronomo comes to visit a wealthy baron, Don Cesare (Pierre Brasseur) requesting for his daughter Marietta to be his servant for a reasonable amount of money. She declines but rather want to be married to him instead. What's resonating is the fact that it centers on this small community and it is interwoven together in which we as viewers can identify with, since things were different back then. Was this about what happened when the Great Depression hit or when stealing was the only means of making a living? Director Jules Dassin does not say, for he just presents the characters as they're without worrying what the audience thinks about them.

The director Jules Dassin was able to draw well the reality of a small village in Southern Italy, where the existing rules were applied with a double standard. The priest was very much concerned with the attitude of Marietta (Gina Lollobrigida), but not with other situations affecting the town. The game called "la legge" (the law) was not an entertainment instead it was a weapon of intimidation. It appears to be as the behavior of strong animals showing their powers over weak ones. This is an old film, which could be useful to be shown in Italy again. Dassin was able to show various details and characters of the life in the village: the patriarch (Pierre Brasseur), the "pidgeon" (Yves Montand), the man of well-doing (Mastroianni), plus the lady of the family or la Donna(Melina Mercouri) and Marietta, likely to be a kind of spoiled Cinderella. All these ingredients put coherently in an interesting plot made the film attractive to be seen and not only once.

This could have been a great movie, but it is almost unbelievable the way in which Dassin looked at Southern (I repeat: SOUTHERN) Italy in the Fifties of 1900. I was a boy, I did not live there, but in that South I spent my holidays. The best holidays I ever had, due surely to my (then) splendid age and to my (then) splendid country.

A young woman dressed like Gina Lollobrigida could never be seen in those years walking the streets of a southern Italian village.

The magnificent place where the movie was partly made is Peschici (Gargano, Puglia). The name Manacore, in fact, was later used for a very elegant and costly touristic place. I spent several holidays there in the Sixties, and (let alone the Fifties!) never saw a woman dressed that way. And, as far as I remember, they did not go to the beach albeit wearing a diving apparatus (complete of snorkel).

And the music in the local festivals (dedicated to saints, with parades, priests, candles and so on) was very different, almost always neapolitan.

Mrs Mercouri and Ives Montand are surely not at their best (to be kind), but we really re- discover a woman which was at most considered a pin-up, and on the contrary was really a great actress: Gina Lollobrigida.

Brasseur is OK, very human and credible. Marcello Mastroianni as usual shows how one can be a great actor with the minimum of mannerisms (or not at all).

A movie which unfortunately aged very badly.