La ragazza con la pistola

This comedy features perhaps the most Italian acting performance ever, in the form of Monica Vitti acting extremely Italian at all times and delivering her English lines in an accent so heavy, its often an incomprehensible sweet sound (I watched it in English dub). In it she is the girl with a pistol who chases a no good lover from her home in Sicily to the UK. Her Latin exotic nature is merely emphasised further as she goes to Edinburgh(!), Sheffield(!), Bath(!) and Brighton(!), as well as London. I have to admit, it was something of a novelty to see screen goddess Vitti kicking about in Waverly Station and up the Royal Mile. The story is knockabout and silly and similarly casual in the story-telling department as Modesty Blaise, which was Vitti's first English language film, however, I do always enjoy a bit of Monica, I loved the scenes of 60's Edinburgh and appreciated the manic theme tune 'Girl With a Gun!'

After looking for a long time I was finally able to get a decent VHS copy of this movie which I had never seen.For me it completes my collection of all of Stanley Baker's theatrical movies.

Sicilian Monica Vitti is "wronged" by her boyfriend who then decamps from her to London.Monica gets a pistol and pursues him with revenge on her mind.

The movie is then a series of encounters with various characters who help her find then lose then find the debaucher.Stanley Baker, who turns up about halfway through the movie as a surgeon is her last connection. The denouement is a little twisty and provides a satisfactory ending.

This is an odd film in which to find Baker. He was a major star but he probably just did it for the money if he wasn't being offered more substantial roles. As a point of interest, the first full length biography of Baker is up for preorder at Amazon UK.

Not a great film, but a wonderful snapshot of sixties England, outside of London for the most part. For Chris, a previous reviewer, the rugby pitch could well be Baths Recreation Ground.

To answer dalesmobile's question, I have just seen the film on Talking Pictures TV tonight, and it may well be repeated on the same channel in the near future.

I enjoyed watching it, if only because of the amount of location shooting in the UK. I would like to know where the rugby match was filmed though.

There's a wonderful surreal character to Mario Monicelli's comedy La Ragazza con la Pistola (The Girl with a Gun), particularly in his fanciful depiction of the strict moral codes of life in a little Sicilian village which exiles a young woman for spending a night with a man. The remainder of the film as Assunta travels across Scotland and England in an effort to track down the terrified Vincenzo with a pistol in her handbag to restore her lost honour, is somewhat episodic and variable, but retains its colourful character and comic touch. Principally however, it's only able to remain as engaging as it does thanks to the irresistible presence of Monica Vitti.

The spectacular opening scenes are actually filmed not in Sicily, but Polignano in Puglia, the geometric structures of its white buildings perched on a crumbling rocky cliff face that seems to be on the verge of toppling into the sea. It does give the surrealism of life in the village an almost Kafkaesque edge that the director exploits marvellously. Despite strict segregation of the sexes and a tight guard, Assunta is abducted by men from Vincenzo's all-male dancing school. Assunat believes that Vincenzo has been watching her through her window, but Vincenzo tells them they got the wrong girl, that he was more interested in Assunta's larger-sized cousin Concetta. "Could be worse", Vincenzo reckons however, and doesn't see any reason why he should let the operation go to waste.

Vincenzo however gets more than he bargained for, as Assunta seems a little more experienced and not as retiring as he might have liked. Knowing that the potential consequence of spending the night with Assunta is marriage, Vincenzo packs his bags and flees the country. Assunta, abandoned, is greeted with wails and laments from the entire village, who come out in numbers to bemoan her lost honour. She is cast out from the town, but not without a pistol in her bag and an address in Scotland where Vincenzo might be found. The strict codes of Sicilian honour demand nothing less.

Vincenzo soon gets wind of Assunta being on his tail, and skips out of the Capri Italian restaurant in Edinburgh fairly quickly and flees across the length of England. Assunta, an avenging angel dressed in black - particularly fetching in sunglasses and black plastic Mac - is however never far behind, always on his tail. Along the way, Assunta meets various men who fall in love with her and experiences all the colour of England in the swinging sixties as well as the industrial greyness of Sheffield, and even ends up on an anti-Vietnam protest in London. La Ragazza con la Pistola eventually runs out of steam in Brighton, but there are plenty of moments of comedy and glamour along the way.