Word: lorene
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...Italian films were often disguised as Hollywood films. They were in English (as released here) and usually boasted an American male star surrounded by a busty bambina and a cast of local scenery-chewers. Anthony Quinn must have had dual citizenship back then: he played in "Attila" with Sophia Loren, "Ulysses" with Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano, and Fellini's Oscar-winning "La Strada" with Giulietta Masina. I didn't see the "Hercules" movies and other sword-and-sand epics, but they were probably the biggest-grossing Italian pictures of the decade...
...Which brings me to Sophia Loren. We would call her statuesque, but that barely does the young Loren justice; so iconic is her voluptuousness, it would be fairer to call statues Sophiaesque. She was married to producer Carlo Ponti, but she didn't need a patron to get good roles. She was "The Miller's Beautiful Wife," a Mario Camerini comedy co-starring de Sica and a calflike Mastroianni. She appeared in de Sica's "Gold of Naples" with Mangano and the clown Toto...
...Eventually Hollywood paged her. For her debut, as a pearl-diver in "Boy on a Dolphin," she emerged from the sea in a clinging outfit that, when I was about 12, instantly induced puberty. But Loren had the whole package: swan neck, laughing voice, a poise and perfect posture rare among tall women and, not least, the gift to inhabit any role, serious or silly, as if she'd been born there. For me, Loren was Italian cinema incarnate - until Claudia Cardinale came along, and then Stefania Sandrelli. The Italian-actress assembly line just kept producing masterpieces...
...Loren has a cameo in "My Voyage to Italy": an excerpt from "Gold of Naples." For four vertiginous hours, women glamorize this compilation film, as they do Italian (and every other) cinema. "Voyage" begins with Magnani's death in "Open City" and ends with Cardinale's seraphic smile in "8-1/2." Bergman is at the center of the Rossellini segment, as Vitti is of the Antonioni. The emotional peak of the whole opus is an 18-min. pr?cis of "Senso," whose ravishments are incarnated by Valli's gift for reckless passion glowing through a steely sheath. The most poignant...
...fails, this biggest of stars falls far and hard, in front of millions. Unfortunately, Australian playwright Williamson has handed her a dud of a play (not saved by Laurence Boswell's clever production, which frames the action in a series of art installations). It's the tale of Loren, an art dealer who must sell a Jackson Pollock painting for $20 million or face a $2 million debt herself. As she soft-sells and schmoozes three interested parties, two of them - dotcom millionaires Kel and Mindy and business magus Manny - reveal desires for more than the painting. While the central...