Lo scopone scientifico

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.

Poverty and wealth confront each other over a (not very) friendly game of cards in this often nerve-wracking black social comedy. From her luxurious Italian villa overlooking the ghettos of Rome, a rich, miserly American widow extends her annual invitation to a poor young local couple for an evening of Scopone, the regional variant of bridge. Every year it's the same story: the old widow lends them money before ruthlessly winning it back, building their anticipation and then dashing their hopes for victory and a quick fortune. But this year the desperate Italian couple has been practicing their strategy, unaware that their pragmatic young daughter has been doing likewise, with different motives and with chilling consequences. The casting of Hollywood veterans Bette Davis and Joseph Cotton is relatively meaningless since their voices have been (poorly) dubbed into Italian, but the film is both sharp and lively, and the climactic showdown at the card table generates surprising intensity, too much to be simply funny.

This is another film resulting from the long and fruitful professional relationship between actor Alberto Sordi and writer Rodolfo Sonego, the most notable of which is probably Risi's 'la Vita Difficile'. Sordi and director Luigi Comencini were no strangers to each other either, having made, amongst others, the marvellous 'Tutti a casa'.

In common with so many films of the genre referred to as Commedia all'Italiana this has an underlying pathos and bitterness which stems from the constant struggle between 'the haves' and the 'have nots'.

The card game of the title, the rules of which are a mystery to me, played by junk-man Peppino and his wife against the millionairess and her companion epitomises this struggle. Never has the phrase 'money comes to money' seemed so apt.

This is an excellent film with a marvellous cast. Sordi of course never misses a beat whilst Silvana Mangano expresses so much by doing so little. They both won a David di Donatello award for this. The casting of Bette Davis is quite frankly a masterstroke. She is superb, her voice being seamlessly dubbed by Lia Zoppelli and Joseph Cotten makes the best of a pretty thankless part in this his third film with Miss Davis. The looks that pass between the players during the games are wonderfully directed by Comencini.

The game spreads from the confines of the magnificent villa to include all the inhabitants of the shanty town who are warned by the priest of the dangers of too much dreaming and of believing that money makes miracles, to no avail alas. Meanwhile back at the villa the tension becomes almost unbearable as the underdogs hit a lucky streak and are sitting on life-changing wealth but will Peppino play the right or the wrong of just two cards.....?

This film is all about money; what people without will do to get it and those with will do to keep it. That reminds me, I must do the Lottery this week. Well, I can dream, can't I?

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.

One of the previous respondents compares Commencini's work on this film to Billy Wilder, and I can't agree more. In fact, this yarn reworks Sunset Boulevard into a full-bodied Italian comedy about how the tyrannical rich use their money to string along the poor and humble.

Remember, there was a card game in Wilder's film too! Here, Bette Davis, as poised, professional, and grandly self-assured as ever, is the Norma Desmond character. She's shrewd, not crazy, but she's got everyone twisting their lives out of shape to humor her in much the same way. Joseph Cotten is the Max von Mayerling character - the artist who threw away a brilliant career to serve this imperious creature. The twist is that Commencini replaces William Holden's wry screenwriter, Joe Gillis, with Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano as the poor couple who've unwittingly staked their lives on whatever they can get from the old lady. Ultimately, of course, it's not just them, but their entire neighborhood who Davis is leading on her merry chase -strictly for her own amusement. The twist at the end is just as perfect, in its own, thoroughly Italian way, as the finale of Wilder's film.

Absolutely delightful - especially the wonderful body (and facial) language of all four principals at the cardtable. They could have kept it up twice as long and it would have been just as amusing. Four expert screen actors, directed to perfection.

Can the bizzers-in-charge PLEASE find a decent print of this and DVD it right away?