Pain, amour, ainsi soit-il

Enjoy it for the colorful scenery and De Sica as the aging lady's man.

I remembered seeing it on Italian TV as a child and even then I liked it, seeing it again yesterday, I thought it wouldn't resist the test of time, instead, I throughly enjoyed it.... for all the qualities you don't see in films nowadays, (especially in modern Italian films).

Briefly, a tale of a cultivated(Vittorio de Sica), educated, charming middle-aged womanizing, newly installed chief of the traffic police (complete with resplendid uniform including white gloves), whom on arriving at his long lost native Sorrento , finds his family home occupied/squatted by a beautiful fishmonger (sofia Loren, at her most splendid).While starting procedures of evicting her he also starts courting her, with poetic citations, charming one liners and complements, inducing the jealousy of her semi - boyfriend/suitor.Complicating matters further, the haunty, aloof but good looking noble woman owner of the house where Vittorio is temporarily living , falls for Vittorio.But all this happens in a semi comic and humorous vein...after all it's a romantic comedy. The film ends with a typical happy ending...but the whole film is held up by the old world charms of Vittorio de Sica....Sofia loren acted well too.

I sometimes wonder if its possible nowadays to make a remake of this film, ....but sometimes I feel it wouldn't work....no female nudity,no profanitites, no sex, and no vulgarities...while I feel I'm in a minority in appreciating good taste, it seems not so with, modern day film or/and TV producers who always want to 'modernize' their 'art' with the aforementioned charateristics. A real pity,... perhaps a new film style could be a return to class and good taste.

The third part of the Maresciallo adventures trilogy is quite different from the previous two in being in colour and cinemascope, and replacing Gina Lollobrigida with Sophia Loren in a completely different environment. The Maresciallo returns to his native town Sorrento by the sea between Naples and Capri as a Comandante and is immediately exposed to new amorous adventures and perils, one being the crude fisherwoman Sophia Loren, who has occupied his home, and the other being a pious saint in the opposite direction (the lovely Lea Padovani). Sophia already has a boyfriend with a temper good enough to fight with anyone, so Sophia will not be easily convinced, although flattered by de Sica's undeniable gentlemanly advantages. The film is not on par with the two previous ones but the more enjoyable for its beauty and colours and wonderful environment. The dialog becomes second to the cinematography and rather banal intrigue, while the dialog is the backbone and core of the previous two. You lack Gina's tempestuous and very down to earth temperament, while Sophia Loren is more stylish but less convincing as a fisherwoman. Vittorio de Sica though is optimal as always.

I don't know, this Sorrento scandal seemed pretty mild to me. There's a small town and Sophia Loren is in the town and so more than one person wants to be with Sophia Loren and there are some sort of comedic moments and then it kind of ends.

It gets by because Loren had star power, and because it's a colorful film that makes good use of its seaside setting. I guess to some extent, I appreciated how drama-free it was, with little sentimentality or forced tension/conflict later in the film. It really just felt like it was trying to be a fairly gentle comedy about some love-related chaos, and a little escapism as a result.

It's not essential and probably won't be memorable in time (to me), but it felt like it did what it wanted to do. Scandal in Sorrento isn't really ambitious at all, from what I can tell, but it does succeed at being decent. That's more than can be said for some movies, and I do also want to go a tiny bit easier on this one because of its age.

Aesthetically pleasing, kind of boring. Sophia and her boyfriend have issues haha.