Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Directors: Various, Via Vision Entertainment.
Cast: Sophia Loren, Clarke Gable, William Holden, Anthony Perkins, Anthony Quinn.
One of the last surviving stars from the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, Italian actress Sophia Loren is the epitome of la Dolce Vita and glamour.
Now 85, Sophia still projects the grace, elegance and allure that made her a symbol of eternal feminine beauty in the 1950s. Oscar-winning Loren (Two Women, Marriage Italian Style, El Cid) is the first to admit that she has lived a “very full life and lived very intensely”. She also feels she could not have lived with “any more passion than I have”. Certainly, feeling happy is the key to ageing gracefully.
The life Loren has lived has been fascinating, wonderful and extraordinary in so many ways. She has also had an illustrious acting career. The screen siren has dazzled the world alongside some of Hollywood’s greatest leading men. Let’s take a nostalgic trip down memory lane with this classic four-film collection.
Written by Eugene O’Neill and directed by Delbert Mann, Desire Under the Elms (1958) signifies an attempt to adapt plot elements and themes of Greek tragedy to a rural New England setting. It was inspired by the myth of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus.
Burl Ives is Ephraim Cabot, a greedy New England farmer, who has exploited two wives to their graves, and works his three sons as slaves. It also stars Anthony Perkins as Eben, the youngest son.
Loren plays Ephraim’s third wife, Anna, a beautiful and willful woman who enters into an adulterous affair with Eben. Anna proves to be tough competition for the sons who are bitter, believing their new stepmother should not inherit the land to which they are entitled. Intense!
Even the title – The Black Orchid (1958) – is mesmerising. Newly widowed, Rose Bianco (Loren) holds herself responsible for the death of her husband, a well-known gangster. With a son in prison, Rose tries to marry a widower Frank Valente (Anthony Quinn) whose daughter (Ina Balin) resents her. Frank brings a happy manner and earnest intentions.
Martin Ritt’s sincere direction ensures the varying emotions and storyline are steadily protected. His push is not obvious, but a tangled drawn story is told with a firm, reliable hand.
Loren plays with notable feeling, convincingly portraying the mother, the widow and the bride. Quinn is excellent, uniting charm with strength.
The Key (1958) is a World War II drama with William Holden in which a tugboat captain falls in love with a woman whose previous lovers all died in combat.
Directed by Carol Reed, this dark but sometimes thought-compelling film centres around the key to a small apartment occupied by Swiss-Italian immigrant Stella (Loren). Canadian tugboat captain David Ross (Holden) arrives in Plymouth, England to perform convoy rescue duty.
He meets his old friend, Captain Chris Ford (Trevor Howard), who takes him to the small flat to meet Loren. It seems, she has always been at the apartment and is passed from one tugboat captain to another. Before Ford is killed, he gives Ross the key, who moves in with Stella. She accepts these new men like a shocked victim, with an almost uninterested attitude. Yet they fall in love with each other.
While the at-sea scenes are first-rate, the plot is implausible with Reed failing to better develop the love story.
It Started in Naples (1960) was the final film to be released in Clark Gable’s lifetime and his last film in color. Just a few days before his wedding, Michael Hamilton (Gable), a Philadelphia lawyer, travels to Italy to wrap up the estate of his deceased brother, Joseph, with Italian lawyer Vitalli (Vittorio De Sica).
In Naples, Michael discovers that his brother had a son, eight-year-old Nando (Carlo Angeletti), who is being cared for by his maternal aunt Lucia (Sophia Loren), a cabaret singer. Joseph never married Nando’s mother, but drowned with her in a boating accident.
Needless to say, he tries to bring his nephew to the US, but obviously the pretty aunt has objections.
Director Melville Shavelson ensures that despite the age difference, romance soon blossoms between Lucia and Michael, and he decides to stay in Italy.
Here’s an opportunity for you to secure a Mother’s Day gift for Sunday, 10 May. Name one of Sophia Loren’s Oscar-winning films. If your answer is correct, then you could win one of two, four-disc DVDs of The Sophia Loren Collection – Volume 1. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by Monday, 4 May 2020. Names of the winners will be announced in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column on 5 May 2020.
