It Started in Naples | |
---|---|
Directed by | Melville Shavelson |
Written by | Suso Cecchi d'Amico (screenplay) Michael Pertwee Jack Davies (story) |
Produced by | Jack Rose |
Starring | Clark Gable Sophia Loren Vittorio De Sica |
Cinematography | Robert Surtees |
Edited by | Frank Bracht |
Music by | Alessandro Cicognini Carlo Savina |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.3 million (US/ Canada Rentals) [1] |
It Started in Naples is a 1960 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and produced by Jack Rose from a screenplay by Suso Cecchi d'Amico, based on the story by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies. The Technicolor cinematography was directed by Robert Surtees. The film stars Clark Gable, Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica and an Italian cast. This was Gable's final film to be released within his lifetime and his last film in color.
Hal Pereira, Roland Anderson, Samuel M. Comer and Arrigo Breschi were nominated for an Oscar for its art direction
The film was released by Paramount Pictures on August 7, 1960.
Only a few days before his wedding, Michael Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer, travels to Naples in southern Italy to settle the estate of his late brother, Joseph, with Italian lawyer Vitale. In the opening narration, he states that he "was here before with the 5th US Army" in World War II. In Naples, Michael discovers that his brother had a son, eight-year-old Nando, who is being cared for by his maternal aunt Lucia, a cabaret singer. Joseph never married Nando's mother but drowned with her in a boating accident. Joseph's actual wife, whom he had left in 1950, is alive in Philadelphia. Michael discovers to his dismay that his brother spent a fortune on fireworks. After seeing Nando handing out racy photos of Lucia at 2 a.m., Michael wants to enroll Nando in the American School at Rome, but Lucia wins custody of the boy. Despite the age difference, romance soon blossoms between Michael and Lucia, and he decides to stay in Italy.
Loren performs a tongue-in-cheek musical number, "Tu vuò fà l'americano" ("You Want to Play American"), written by famed Neapolitan composer Renato Carosone.
Angeletti did not speak English and learned his lines phonetically, which he had also done in his previous film, in which he mouthed German lines without knowing how to speak German. [2]
On the second day of filming of a courtroom scene, an actor portraying one of the judges seen in the first day's footage was unavailable because he had plans to take his family to the beach. The actor sent his brother in his place, who did not resemble him. [2]
Writing in The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film a "featherweight, obvious romance" but praised Loren: "Among the scenic attractions ... is an eyeful named Sophia Loren. ... And the Bay of Naples, the Blue Grotto, the port of Capri and numerous vistas on the Mediterranean are scarcely as stunning as she.", and that even Clark Gable "lets himself be exposed throughout the picture as a sort of sourpuss in the shadow of the girl." [3] Variety said that the script and Shavelson's direction "try too hard to make the film up-roariously funny and risque. When the wit flows naturally, it is a delight; when it strains, it pains." However, Gable and Loren are "a surprisingly effective and compatible comedy pair", and that above all, Loren offered "a vigorous and amusing performance". [4] Conversely, film critic Leonard Maltin said that the star duo "never clicks as love match, but they do their best". [5]
French newspaper Le Monde wrote that It Started in Naples, "even more than the world of comics, evokes that of the easy picturesque postcards in favor of foreign tourists. This film, imbued with a sentimentality of charming songs, is helmed by an American, Melville Shavelson, who has hired, no doubt for the purposes of the co-production, Sophia Loren and Clark Gable. Both lack conviction, and we cannot blame them. It is however not unpleasant to look at Sophia Loren who, in spite of some added grimaces, remained superb of casualness, of health. Clark Gable bears his role with despondency, and over his marked face passes a kind of weary tension, as if it already foreshadows the illness that would suddenly take him away." (The review was written in February 1961, three months after Gable's death the previous November.) [6]
For the German Lexikon des internationalen Films ("Lexicon of International Films"), It Began in Naples is a "star comedy" that could come up with "many whimsical punchlines" and was "amiably entertaining". [7] German film magazine Cinema thought it was "gorgeous how the fiery Loren is allowed to sing, dance and above all rant wildly to her heart's content", while saying that the romance portrayed between her and Clark Gable is convincing "but at most is on paper." [8] German supplement Prisma said that the "thoroughbred woman Sophia Loren is in her element", and that in the film she is "as we know her and like to see her best." [9]
It was released to DVD in North America in 2005.
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian film director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.
William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood", he had roles in more than 60 films in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone, known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress. With a career spanning over 70 years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of classical Hollywood cinema and is one of the last surviving major stars from the era. Loren is also the only remaining living person to appear on AFI's list of the 50 greatest stars of American film history, positioned 21st.
Two Women is a 1960 war drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica from a screenplay he co-wrote with Cesare Zavattini, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown and Raf Vallone. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The story is fictional, but based on actual events of 1944 in Rome and rural Lazio, during the Marocchinate.
Marriage Italian Style is a 1964 romantic comedy-drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica, starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr.OMRI was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.
Houseboat is a 1958 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson. The songs, "Almost In Your Arms" sung by Sam Cooke, and "Bing! Bang! Bong!", sung by Sophia Loren, were written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. It was presented in Technicolor and VistaVision.
A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British romantic comedy film scored, written, and directed by Charlie Chaplin, and the final film directed, written, produced and scored by him. Based on the life of a former Russian aristocrat, as he calls her in his 1922 book My Trip Abroad. She was a Russian singer and dancer who "was a stateless person marooned in France without a passport." The film starred Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, and revolved around an American diplomat who falls in love with a stowaway on a cruise. Sydney Chaplin, Tippi Hedren, Patrick Cargill and Margaret Rutherford co-star in major supporting roles; Chaplin also made a cameo, marking his final screen appearance.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is a 1963 comedy anthology film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. It stars Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. The film consists of three short stories about couples in different parts of Italy. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 37th Academy Awards.
A Breath of Scandal is a 1960 American/Italian international co-production romantic comedy-drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the stage play Olympia by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, and John Gavin, with Angela Lansbury, Milly Vitale, Roberto Risso, Isabel Jeans, and Tullio Carminati. The film is set at the turn of the 20th century and features lush technicolor photography of Vienna and the countryside of Austria. The costumes and lighting were designed by George Hoyningen-Huene and executed by Ella Bei of the Knize fashion house (Austria). In part because Loren was at odds with Curtiz's direction, Italian director Vittorio De Sica was hired to reshoot certain scenes with Loren after hours without Curtiz's knowledge.
Camilla "Milly" Vitale was an Italian actress. She was the daughter of Riccardo Vitale and choreographer Natasha Shidlowski Vitale.
Melville Shavelson was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. He was President of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAw) from 1969 to 1971, 1979 to 1981, and 1985 to 1987.
The Gold of Naples is a 1954 Italian anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."
Clark Gable (1901–1960) was an American actor and producer who appeared in over 70 feature films and several short films. Gable first began acting in stage productions, before his film debut in 1924. After many minor roles, Gable landed a leading role in 1931, subsequently becoming one of the most dominant leading men in Hollywood. He often acted alongside re-occurring leading ladies: six films with Jean Harlow, seven with Myrna Loy, and eight with Joan Crawford, among many others.
Too Bad She's Bad is a 1955 Italian comedy directed by Alessandro Blasetti. It stars Sophia Loren and is based on Alberto Moravia's story "Fanatico", from his Racconti Romani.
The Pigeon That Took Rome is a 1962 American comedy war film directed and written by Melville Shavelson and starring Charlton Heston. The film is set in the Italian Campaign of World War II and was based on the 1961 novel The Easter Dinner by former spy Donald Downes.
Arrigo Breschi was an Italian set decorator. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film It Started in Naples (1960) which starred Clark Gable, Sophia Loren, and Vittorio De Sica.
"Tu vuò fà l'americano" is a Neapolitan language song by Italian singer Renato Carosone.
Sophia Loren: Her Own Story is a 1980 American television film directed by Mel Stuart and starring Sophia Loren as herself. The film was written by Joanna Crawford based on the 1979 biographical book Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story by A.E. Hotchner and originally aired on NBC on October 26, 1980.
The history of cinema in Naples begins at the end of the 19th century and over time it has recorded cinematographic works, production houses and notable filmmakers. Over the decades, the Neapolitan capital has also been used as a film set for many works, over 600 according to the Internet Movie Database, the first of which would be Panorama of Naples Harbor from 1901.