La belle Romaine

Grim pastiche of the still overrated misogynist Moravia, starring the incompetent Lollo, whose hallmark pouting manipulations here play neatly into the hands of the male-dominated Italian film industry, then and now. Zampa's emasculated recreation of the unspeakable horrors of Fascism is shameful: a weak scenography by Bassani and lazy transition from an indifferent book, each scene delivered in bite-sized morsels for a smug semi-illiterate Italian audience enjoying the so-called economic boom, now feeling exonerated from their abject mass collaboration with the regime barely a decade earlier. Watchable only for Gélin and the interiors and exteriors of a Rome before the country's colonisation by American-style consumerism in the 1960s, replacing one regime with another.

Bearing in mind that Alberto Moravia's novel 'La Romana' was on the Index of Forbidden Works, any attempt to adapt it for film was bound to be fraught with difficulties. I still have my dog-eared Penguin copy and to be fair to director Luigi Zampa he has done his best to be as faithful as possible to the text. The author collaborated on the script but even with the changes they were obliged to make the film still faced opposition from the Catholic authorities. The controversy certainly did the film no harm at the box office and its first showing at the Venice Film Festival became a media circus.

The critical reaction while not hostile, seemed to suggest that the film had failed to meet expectations and the more positive reviews were saved for Gina Lollobrigida as the title character.

This is certainly La Lollo's most challenging role since that of Gemma in 'La Provinciale' for Mario Soldati and Luigi Zampa has drawn from her what I think is her best performance.

Byron called Beauty 'the fatal gift' and this certainly applies in the case of Adriana. Her mother hopes that her daughter's good looks will bring her a rich husband and security but all it seems to bring is bad fortune and the attentions of Gino who is a rat, Mino, one of Moravia's archetypal intellectuals who is consumed with guilt about his moral cowardice, a fascist official named Astarita and last but not least Sonzogno, a brutish thug.

Daniel Gélin as Mino drew mostly negative reviews but has a difficult role and succeeds in arousing our sympathy for his weakness rather than our contempt. The fascist Astarita is far more sympathetic here than in the novel and Raymond Pellegrin gives an excellent performance. Mention must be made of Pia Piovani who impresses as Adriana's bitter, disillusioned mother.

As expected in Italian cinema there is plenty of dubbing going on but it is generally seamless. There is a strong score by Enzo Masetti.

Zampa has chosen to concentrate on the protagonists here rather than the society and the era around them. This is set in the 1930s but I didn't really have a sense of 'being there'. In this respect it is disappointing but is redeemed by Zampa's obvious skill with actors and the committed performances of his cast.

I wonder why there's no review of this film up to now, not only because it's a very good movie. Beside of that, it features one of the biggest female movie-stars of the 20th century, Gina Lollobrigida, in an early leading role, in the prime of her beauty. To my taste, she appears here much more impressive than in later and better-known roles. The underlying story ('La Romana')was a big success in the USA in the year 1947, and millions of it were sold worldwide, was written by one of the most famous 20th-century-Italian writers, Alberto Moravia. The film itself is a late example of the equally famous Italian neorealistic style, with a depressing finale, regarding its heroine.

The story is set in the Italian fascist era (1935), full of tension, and very atmospheric. The streets, cars and people of the later post-war-Rome (1954, when the film was made)are shown in gritty black-and-white. In a sequence playing within a Cinema, film within film, one sees marching fascist Italian troops on the screen, giving a feeling as if you were a cinema-visitor yourself, and then the propaganda is suddenly cut short by an action of anti-fascists. In spite of a scene like this, the film centers on the individual aspects of the protagonists, rather than on the underlying political aspects.

So many movies glorify prostitution, and so many movies don't capture one hundredth of the essence of confliction a woman has to go through before she joins that profession. Woman of Rome is an Italian drama that shows how Gina Lollobrigida walks the streets...for no good reason.

Gina is a good girl with a pushy mother, Pina Piovani, who wants her to use her beauty to catch a rich husband. Instead, Gina falls for a penniless chauffer. Before she finds out he's already married and has a family, she goes out on a double date with a girlfriend, who is a prostitute. Gina knows what's going on, and she drinks too much wine and goes into the back bedroom with her date. Then, on the drive home, he gives her some money and she acts horrified. While it's a lovely expression on Gina's face, it doesn't exactly endear her to the audience. She made such bad choices before she could have been seen as taking revenge on her married boyfriend. After she does find out his situation, she becomes a prostitute full time.

This movie really isn't very good, even for Gina Lollobrigida fans. Yes, she looks beautiful, but the story is really silly. It's full of constant and needless narration from Gina herself, and her exploits make her unlikable, at best. If you're in the mood for a better foreign drama, check Gina out in The Law instead.

Gina Lollobrigida goes to work as an artist's model in 1930s Rome. She is young, beautiful, and desired by many men, some whom lie to her, like Franco Fabrizi, some who force her, like Raymond Pellegrini, some who threaten her, like Renato Tontini.... and then there's Daniel Gélin.

All of them claim to love her. Will any of them work out? It's a tough, cruel life for a beautiful young woman, surrounded by men who lie to her. Luigi Zampa's drama shares some story-telling techniques from Neo-realism, but it's a glossy studio production that shows off Lollobrigida's beauty and acting talents. Like many movies about hard times for poor women, it harkens to the Japanese shomin-gekkim, the low-class tragedy. Although this doesn't seem to offer any particularly deep message, it's fine commercial film-making, far more telling than the repressed Hollywood weeper of the era