C'est arrivé à Naples

This movie is a movie that just makes you feel good inside. It was slow at the start, but once Gable started spending time with the boy and Loren, the story picked up and left a wonderful product. My only complaint is that it was sometimes hard to pick up what the Italians were saying when they spoke in English. And although it was pretty easy to sense what they were meaning when they spoke in Italian, I would have liked to see some subtitles...just to know what they were saying. But that would have taken away from the movie...so maybe it's best just as it was. Anyways, a fine film, with Gable his normal charming self, with another male to vy for Sofia Loren, this time being and eight year old.

I've just seen this on a beautiful DVD and I want to echo the positive comments. While not the funniest movie ever made it is amusing and a good family-type picture---assuming that families watch this type of picture these days.

What makes it happen for me is seeing Clark Gable and Sophia Loren together on screen with a beautiful background full of Capri Italy, 1960. The story is pretty basic but {like most good movies}provides a framework, plot situations and dialog- a lot of it in Italian, but still understandable- to keep the action moving and show off the Star Power on screen.There is great chemistry between Loren and Gable as well as co-star Vittorio De Sica and the young kid who plays the boy Nando - a star turn at age 10. Charming,amusing with eye-filling scenery and three legendary cinema personalities. Diverting and entertaining.

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.

This will be hard for many film lovers to believe, but I never liked Clark Gable. I've seen some of his classics like "Gone With the Wind" and "It Happened One Night", and I was always turned off by the narcissistic, arrogant jerk he always seemed to play. I only wanted to see this film because I was about to take a trip to Naples and I was hoping for some nice scenery. I was also hoping Gable wouldn't ruin it for me completely.

Jackpot! The combination of the location filming, interesting premise, clever writing, humor, solid supporting performances by Marietto and Vittorio De Sica, and Gable's highly entertaining portrayal of a short-tempered curmudgeon rather than his usual dashing know-it-all really made this film for me. I don't know how many times I've watched it. I even bought the DVD, and I buy very few due to a serious lack of storage space, because I knew I would want to share it.

During the time I spent in Naples I was constantly reminded of things in the movie: fireworks, schedules that are wrong but 'everyone knows it', endless varieties of coffee… this movie really "gets" Naples, and surprisingly some things about it haven't changed all that much in fifty years.

And now that I'm finally feeling well-disposed towards Mr. Gable, maybe I'll have to give some of his other work a second try.

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.