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Boccaccio 70
 
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Boccaccio 70

Anita Ekberg (Actor), Sophia Loren (Actor), Federico Fellini (Director), Luchino Visconti (Director) | Rated: Unrated | Format: DVD

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A summit meeting of great Italian directors of the era, Boccaccio '70 is an antipasto platter of vintage sex symbols and naughty material. Cooked up and bankrolled by Carlo Ponti and American producer Joseph E. Levine, the four-part film was meant to tap the international smash of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which gave audiences some refreshingly, you know, "mature" subject matter. Four directors were hired to create segments ostensibly based on the tales of Boccaccio: Fellini himself (in the lull between La Dolce Vita and 8-1/2), Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, and Mario Monicelli.

Monicelli's story, Renzo and Luciana, is an agreeable tale, full of everyday Roman life: an office worker (Marisa Solinas) must marry her boyfriend when she gets pregnant--although marriage is against company rules. Fellini's segment, The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, is fantastical and big-scaled. It tells of a censorious bluenose (Peppino de Filippo) who becomes incensed at the presence of a billboard featuring a sexy portrait of Anita Ekberg (selling milk)--a portrait that comes to life. For this bizarre escapade, Nino Rota composed an advertising jingle that will stick in your mind whether you want it to or not.

Visconti's The Job is the best segment, tracking the emotional chess game between a playboy (Thomas Milian) and his wife (Romy Schneider at her most gorgeous) after he is publicly exposed in a sex scandal. Finally, the De Sica piece (The Raffle) is a fairly broad romp that uses Sophia Loren as the reward in a raffle. Sophia's delicious, needless to say.

The finished product weighed in at a whopping 208 minutes, and Monicelli's segment was lopped off before the film showed at the Cannes Film Festival. It has never been restored, until this DVD release. All the segments are frankly too long, and none qualifies as an essential gem, but they do give the flavor of Italy's best at an especially exciting cinematic moment. --Robert Horton

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:  8 reviews
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
It's the Fellini segment, stupid! July 21 2005
By Uncle Borges - Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
5 stars because of the fantastic Fellini at his best-incomparable-Anita Ekberg-extravaganza! 3 stars to de Sica for lovely yet minor Sofia romp. 2 stars to theatrical budoir boredom of Visconti who can't find proper filter for his camera. 2 stars for Monicelli: was this a futuristic tale? 1 star to rather drab DVD package with hardly any meat on it (stills + thirty seconds of some black and white Sofia newsreel footage from 196?...nothing else!)

Overall: 5 stars because Il Maestro overwhelms every single complaint...in fact I suggest that you first watch disc 2 (Visconti/de Sica combo) and then go to disc 1 (Monicelli/Fellini)...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Viva Anita Eckberg, Romy Schneider and Sophie Loren! Sep 15 2007
By Hiram Gomez Pardo - Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
Bocaccio 70 is a set of four vignettes (The U:S version included an additional work directed by Mario Monicelli), although I don' t know this chapter; I will comment you the works I know.

" The bet" is a demolishing, incisive and merciless of a decaying marriage, when the husband of a very rich wealthy and alluring woman (the exquisite and unforgettable Romy Schneider) in a role that fits for her to perfection. She personifies the woman of the sixties at the eve of the feminine liberation, and so did she when she notices has been cheated by his husband and so she will take her own and brutal revenge. This is by far, the most mature of the three portraits, with that exquisiteness so typical of Luchino Visconti.

"The temptation of Saint Anthony" is a cynical and mundane parable; a demolishing satire about the Freudian man, who suffers in his own flesh all the sins of the world, product of the voluptuousness emanated from Anita Eckberg in a huge poster with a suggestive semiotic lexicon. That portrait will become for him a true set of bad dreams, but the way in which is told a this acidic surrealistic and mordacious story is so brilliant that the rest of the plot runs for you.

Finally, "The raffle" is perhaps the less relevant and banal of the previous two. It has to do with the times and livings of woman in search of love in the middle of a raffle (a sharp metaphor of life), but the script is extremely weak to hold the previous entries of FEFE and Visconti.

Fortunately the first two justify plainly your purchase. A cult movie to enjoy over and over, due the pristine elegance and mordacity that have resisted the test of time.

Highly recommended!
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Drink your meelk! May 3 2005
By G. Williford - Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
This film I picked up more out of curiousity and because Fellini directs one of the viginettes. I had never seen any of the 4 mini films before, nor did I know of the controversy surrounding its universal release. Each film deals with sexuality in different ways. All of the films have impressive looking anamorphic transfers for being almost 45yrs old. There is English dubbed audio tracks though my copy kept switching back to Italian on its own.. English subtitles looked fine.

All of the films looked great and are restored anamorphic transfers. The Fellini film was my favorite by far. This is his first feature using color as well as featuring dreams/fantasy in his films. I couldn't help think of Attack of the 50ft Woman seeing the charming Anita come to life off a billboard. This is as close to comedy as Fellini got , too bad he didn't explore this more often. Fellini's segment is almost an hour.

The Visconti piece was lavishly produced and feautured a troubled wife trying to rekindle that spark. This takes place in a high class French styled mansion. Romy is nice to look at even if she is rather pathetic. This mini drama was the most serious of the 4 and rather depressing as it unfolded.

The last two were rather light and forgetful even if Sophia Loren looked fabulous, and was omni present in her role as a carnival spinster with a change of heart.

The extras are fun. Lots of on set pics and lobby cards , plus a large fold out booklet with press clippings and news reviews.The U.S. and Italian trailers are intresting to compare.

If your a Fellini fan, you would do well to see this for his giantess fantasy alone!

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