It Started in Naples

I've just seen this on a beautiful DVD and I want to echo the positive comments. While not the funniest movie ever made it is amusing and a good family-type picture---assuming that families watch this type of picture these days.

What makes it happen for me is seeing Clark Gable and Sophia Loren together on screen with a beautiful background full of Capri Italy, 1960. The story is pretty basic but {like most good movies}provides a framework, plot situations and dialog- a lot of it in Italian, but still understandable- to keep the action moving and show off the Star Power on screen.There is great chemistry between Loren and Gable as well as co-star Vittorio De Sica and the young kid who plays the boy Nando - a star turn at age 10. Charming,amusing with eye-filling scenery and three legendary cinema personalities. Diverting and entertaining.

This movie is a movie that just makes you feel good inside. It was slow at the start, but once Gable started spending time with the boy and Loren, the story picked up and left a wonderful product. My only complaint is that it was sometimes hard to pick up what the Italians were saying when they spoke in English. And although it was pretty easy to sense what they were meaning when they spoke in Italian, I would have liked to see some subtitles...just to know what they were saying. But that would have taken away from the movie...so maybe it's best just as it was. Anyways, a fine film, with Gable his normal charming self, with another male to vy for Sofia Loren, this time being and eight year old.

This was the first Clark Gable movie I ever remember seeing and I saw it in the old Marine Theatre in Brooklyn. Turned out also to be the last one Clark Gable got to see released as The Misfits was released after Gable's demise.

He's an honest to God Philadelphia lawyer who had a brother who deserted his wife and took off for Italy where he lived with another woman. The brother has died and Gable has gone to Italy to settle the estate.

The estate's one very tangible asset was the brother's son played very winningly by Marietto. Mom is deceased also and the boy is living with her sister and who wouldn't want an aunt who looked like Sophia Loren. It's a custody battle and the question the movie asks is how will the issue be settled, in or out of court?

Gable's certainly a mature leading man playing about 15 to 20 years younger than he is, but he carries it off well. And Sophia Loren is wonderful to see.

But the real star of this film is the Isle of Capri, one of the most beautiful spots on this old planet. Capri was getting a lot of publicity from Hollywood. Only a year before Mario Lanza's last film, For the First Time, also was shot a great deal in Capri. After these two films the tourist business must have boomed.

Sophia Loren has a few nice numbers to sing and one of them was the song Americano. It had a revival a few years ago in Matt Damon's The Talented Mr. Ripley. But Sophia's version is soooooooooo much better.

Marietto, also known as Carlo Angeletti, is the little star in this movie who steals the limelight from Clark Gable and Sophia Loren. He plays the super cute little street urchin who may or may not be the real nephew of rich American lawyer from Philadelphia Clark Gable.

The little lad with the sparkling eyes and winning ways conspires to match his poor aunt, Sophia Loren, with the rich uncle. Not that anyone would need much encouraging to marry Loren who was at the height of her beauty in 1958.

The other beauty in the movie is Naples itself, the magnificent bay then unspoiled by tourists, and the Isle of Capri.

In such a romantic setting with Marietto as Cupid, do we need to tell the ending?

See also Loren in Houseboat, where she plays the nanny matched with the rich bachelor Dad of Cary Grant. And where the cute kids, led by Paul Petersen, conspire a romance.

You have to forgive this movie several faults in order to enjoy it. Clark Gable, at 59, is far too old for Sophia Loren, 26. The musical numbers are weak with the exception of 'Americano', and let's face it, Loren is no Ginger Rogers. The custody battle for the child – Loren's son and Gable's nephew – is absurd to begin with, and then compounded by silly back and forth melodrama in the second half of the film. The film on the surface seems to be a loving look at Italy and Italians, but Gable's character is condescending with an annoying American arrogance, and the film as a whole is a bit patronizing.

And yet, despite all that, I found it somewhat enjoyable, and certainly better than expected. Shot on location in Naples and Capri, the scenery is gorgeous and many of the shots in the streets or piazzas look authentic. Gable gets off a lot of wry one-liners in a script where the dialogue is better than events. Loren may not have the greatest dance moves, but she does show both a comedic side and a touching side in her playful relationship with her son, in addition to, well, being a knockout and all. I love the scene where Loren is sprawled out face down on the bed after a long night dancing, and her son pokes her in the behind with a meat fork in front of Gable. The supporting cast is all-Italian, and the little boy (Marietto) and the lawyer (Vittorio De Sica) turn in good performances. There are moments that seem cliché, but there are also moments that seem spontaneous, and quite true to southern Italy. Far from perfect, but enjoyable.