Lo scopone scientifico

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.

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!

Horror! The DVD is released without English subtitles. I've been talking about this superb Italian blackish comedy ever since I saw it for the first time. I was puzzled by the fact that such a beautifully made film, brilliantly written and with a cast that includes Bette Davis, Alberto Sordi, Joseph Cotten and Silvana Mangano wasn't some kind of "cult" classic in the States. It isn't because nobody knows about the existence of this jewel. Now, on DVD I hurried to buy as many copies I could find. What a great present for all those folks in the good old USA that have heard me talk about it and imitate Bette Davis saying "I want to play cards" in her death bed. Imagine my shock when I opened the DVDs to find out they didn't include subtitles. I was livid! I rushed back to the shop to return them. The shop manager, in typical Italian style, shrugged his shoulders like saying "What can I do about it" I'm really disappointed by whoever perpetrated this moronic release without any, if nothing else, commercial sense.

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.

Fairy tales are usually dark but very rarely are this human or that funny for that matter. Bette Davis plays a wealthy American with an addiction to card playing and to winning. She has become an expert on the local card games of different countries around the world where she owns houses. Bound to a wheel chair, the card games are her only close connection with the world of the living. In Rome, the card game is called "scopone" and she summons a married couple to be her adversaries. The couple, a magnificent Alberto Sordi and an unrecognizable Silvana Mangano, are the poorest of the poor, with a family of five children. As soon as Bette arrives to Rome, she calls them and gives them one million lire to play with. Sistematically, every year she will win the million back. Sordi and Mangano spend the rest of the year practicing, dreaming that one day they will win. The building up to the climax is one of the most painfully funny things I've ever seen. Pathetic and uplifting at the same time. Bette Davis is superb as the capitalist torturer/benefactor with a great Alberto Sordi at her side. Try not to miss it.