Ghosts of Rome | |
---|---|
Directed by | Antonio Pietrangeli |
Written by | Sergio Amidei Ennio Flaiano Ruggero Maccari Antonio Pietrangeli Ettore Scola |
Based on | idea by Sergio Amidei story by Ennio Flaiano Antonio Pietrangeli Ettore Scola Ruggero Maccari |
Produced by | Franco Cristaldi |
Starring | Marcello Mastroianni |
Cinematography | Giuseppe Rotunno |
Edited by | Eraldo Da Roma |
Music by | Nino Rota |
Production companies | Galatea Film Lux Film Vides Cinematografica |
Distributed by | Lux Film Gala (UK) |
Release dates |
August 1964 (UK) |
Running time | 105 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian |
Ghosts of Rome (Italian : Fantasmi a Roma) is a 1961 Italian comedy film directed by Antonio Pietrangeli. [1] It was released in the UK in 1964 as The Phantom Lovers.
Count di Roviano refuses to sell his palace to a developer, despite having no money. He lives with ghosts: Ronaldo, a lady's man, Bartholomew, a friar, Flora, who died with love, and a five year old boy.
The Count is blown up by his water heater and joins the ghosts. His nephew Federico inherits the castle and moves in with his girlfriend Eileen, intending to sell it. The ghosts call in an artist friend, Caparra, and try to get him to finish a painting so the castle is declared a national monument.
Nino Rota did the music. A writer on Rota's career analysed the score, saying that:
The music for the credits... is supplied first by a sprightly modern jazz combo, then by a barrel organ. This is appropriate for a film that is about the present and the past in two ways: ghosts occupying a palazzo in present-day Rome, and the destructive attempts of its new owners to modernise it, attempts thwarted by the ghosts. However, the ghosts’ motifs are not always played on old instruments; while on their first appearance in the film, each one’s motif is so introduced... this often gives way to jazziness... This play with motifs and instrumentations continues throughout the film and is appropriate: the ghosts are not anti-modern; they enjoy playing about in modern-day Rome while also wishing to preserve the inheritance of (their) past. [2]
Variety said "pic is quaint but bogs down after some inventive early passages... special effects are good but without the film pacing to make them captivating throughout. Obvious phantoms soon get repetitive." [3]
One review called it "a jolly little Roman fantasy." [4] The Spectator called it "a cheerful surprise." [5]
The Monthly Film Bulletin called it an "inoffensive comedy has a theme too slight and too lacking to be anything other than tedious when treated at such length." [6]
Sight and Sound called it "a fragile fantasy". [7] Filmink called it "entertaining". [8]
Eduardo De Filippo won Best Supporting Actor at the 1961 San Francisco Film Festival. [9]
Vittorio Gassman, popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.
Giovanni Rota Rinaldi, better known as Nino Rota, was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare screen adaptations, and for the first two installments of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974).
Saturnino "Nino" Manfredi was an Italian actor, voice actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, comedian, singer, author, radio personality and television presenter.
Eduardo De FilippoOMRI, also known simply as Eduardo, was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria. Considered one of the most important Italian artists of the 20th century, De Filippo was the author of many theatrical dramas staged and directed by himself first and later awarded and played outside Italy. For his artistic merits and contributions to Italian culture, he was named senatore a vita by the President of the Italian Republic Sandro Pertini.
Belinda Lee was an English actress.
Ennio Flaiano was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, and drama critic. Best known for his work with Federico Fellini, Flaiano co-wrote ten screenplays with the Italian director, including La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960), and 8½ (1963).
Enzo Petito was an Italian film and stage character actor. A theatre actor under Eduardo De Filippo in the 1950s in the Teatro San Ferdinando of Naples, with whom he was professionally closely associated, Petito also appeared in several of his films, often co-starring Eduardo or/and brother, Peppino De Filippo, brothers who are considered to be amongst the greatest Italian actors of the 20th century. Petito played minor roles in some memorable commedia all'Italiana movies directed by the likes of Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli in the late 1950s and early 1960s, often appearing alongside actors such as Nino Manfredi, Alberto Sordi, Peppino De Filippo, Anna Maria Ferrero, and Totò.
Antonio Pietrangeli was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He was a major practitioner of the commedia all'italiana genre.
The Nastro d'Argento is a film award assigned each year, since 1946, by Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani, the association of Italian film critics.
Furio Scarpelli, also called Scarpelli, was an Italian screenwriter, famous for his collaboration on numerous commedia all'italiana films with Agenore Incrocci, forming the duo Age & Scarpelli.
Long Night in '43 is an Italian drama film of 1960 set in Ferrara, in the Italian Social Republic German puppet state during the late stages of the Second World War. It was directed by Florestano Vancini and adapted by Vancini, Ennio De Concini and Pier Paolo Pasolini from a short story by Giorgio Bassani. The film stars Enrico Maria Salerno, Gino Cervi, Belinda Lee, Gabriele Ferzetti and Andrea Checchi.
Agostino "Tino" Buazzelli was an Italian stage, television and film actor. He appeared in 46 films between 1948 and 1978.
The Story of Joseph and His Brethren is a 1961 Yugoslavian/Italian film directed by Irving Rapper and Luciano Ricci.
Boccaccio '70 is a 1962 comedy anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli and Luchino Visconti from an idea by Cesare Zavattini. It consists of four episodes, each by one of the directors, all about a different aspect of morality and love in modern times in the style of Giovanni Boccaccio.
Enio Girolami, sometimes credited as Thomas Moore, was an Italian film and television actor.
Evi Maltagliati was an Italian stage, television and film actress.
Antonio Cifariello was an Italian actor and documentarist.
Amarcord Nino Rota is an album by various artists, recorded as a tribute to composer Nino Rota.
Backstage is a 1939 Italian comedy film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and starring Filippo Romito, Elisa Cegani and Camillo Pilotto. It is part of the tradition of White Telephone films, popular in Italy during the era.
The Nights of Lucretia Borgia is a 1959 Italian historical drama film. It was also known as Le notti di Lucrezia Borgia and Nights of Temptation. It was one of a series of sexually aggressive characters Belinda Lee played in European movies.