La baia di Napoli

Philadelphia lawyer Michael Hamilton (Clark Gable) arrives in Naples to settle the estate of his philandering brother...

He learns that his brother had taken a common-law wife who died with him in an automobile accident, leaving a ten-year-old lovechild named Nando...

Nando (Marietto) is looked after by his attractive aunt Lucia (Sophia Loren), a dazzling night-club dancer on Capri, who dreams of someday becoming a movie star...

Almost immediately, Mike and Lucia clash over the boy's upbringing...

Lucia wants to keep the lad and let him live as he chooses... The street urchin stays up half the night in the club, smokes cigarettes and indulges in trivial theft... Mike is aghast, and insists he be giving a proper formal and social education...

The matter is put to the court, but during the struggle for Marietto's affections, the couple fall in love and fight a lot when Hamilton makes it clear that marriage is out...

Photographed in Capri, the Island of Dreams, the pearl of the Mediterranean sea, the film is a nice romantic comedy in which a sexy Queen captures the 'King of Hollywood.'

Gable delivers one of the most memorable lines of the movie when he asks, at night, a waiter: 'How are people supposed to sleep on this island?'

This is the penultimate film of the career of Clark Gable, and his last comedy. He is a Philadelphia lawyer named Michael Hamilton, who is about to marry a suitable middle aged woman at home (we never see her), and must delay the marriage while he goes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged brother. He is unaware of the details, but his brother was never a hard headed, hard working type - and he had fled to Italy, where he seems to have drowned in an accident. Mike discovers his brother was out fishing with his wife when a sudden squall upset the boat and drowned them. He also discovers his brother lived up to his reputation as a ne'er-do-well by specializing in making great fireworks, and left a little boy named Nando (Marietto). But Nando's mother had a sister named Lucia (Sophia Loren) who appears at a local Capri nightclub. Mike and Lucia find themselves at odds about Nando's present and future lifestyle: Mike wants the boy brought up in America, while Lucia wants him in a happier, earthier life in Italy. Soon Nando, Lucia, Mike, and Mike's lawyer Vitale (Vittorio De Sica) manage to bring the blood uncle and blood aunt into a closer and closer relationship. Eventually they fall in love.

Gable's performance was similar to a middle class "Ugly American" as in the contemporary novel and the movie with Marlon Brando. Mike is a successful lawyer, and he wants his brother's son to get the breaks he needs in good schools and with a normal home. He cannot believe that the little fellow is not degenerating, but is actually in a loving household with Lucia. In the first third of the film Gable makes a lot of snide comments about the easy take it life style he sees around him in Italy. It is only gradually that he realizes that the Italians can be serious when they want, and that there is nothing wrong (as he eventually admits) to being an elderly carriage driver singing "So Long to Sorrento" for his fares' amusement. He also can see that his first choice for marriage is even stuffier than he is, or that there were some really unattractive aspects in his fellow American tourists (witness that final scene in the railway car he is leaving Naples in).

Lucia is also an interesting character - she mistrusts Americans (as her song "Americano" spoofs their foibles), but her own ambitions for success mirror the type of work ethic that is part of the American persona. She also is a realist - she insists that Nando speak English at home, rather than Italian. The reason (aside from the obvious screenplay reason of allowing the audience to understand the conversation) is that English is the international tongue of the modern age. If Nando is to succeed, he has to speak English well. Her affection for her nephew is deep - to the point that she is willing to even consider losing him for his own good.

Nando is trying to find a balance between his aunt and uncle. He loves the aunt, and gets to really like Mike, but he can't understand why Mike can't only leave him with Lucia, and then occasionally visit. When Mike and Lucia become an item (or appear to be one), well that's fine too - they can take up where his parents left off. But he is capable of knowing if something is going wrong. When Mike says he wants to talk to him "man to man" Nando's face drops, and he says he never likes it when he hears "man to man".

Vitale is an interesting supporting character. As the lawyer for Mike's brother he is obliged to tell him what the deceased's estate was (mostly fireworks and Nando). He begins processing Mike's legal moves to get custody of Nando away from Lucia. Lucia confronts Vitale, calling him a traitor to Italy for helping an American steal her nephew, and calling him a pig (as his looks at the sumptuous Lucia/Sophia Loren reveal). His helpless reply is that a man can be both a lawyer and a pig. In the end, in the courtroom, he is so twisted by his loyalties that he cannot give Mike a coherent (or even fair) defense. One can understand his dilemma.

It is a sweet comedy, that holds up very well. It makes one wonder if Gable would have continued in roles like this one had he not died so soon after THE MISFITS.

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.

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.

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.