Word: mastroianni
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Fellini picks at the scabrous center of Rome's cafe society and uncovers nymphomania, homosexuality, and the rest of Decadence's retinue. Caught up by the momentum of his careening world, Marcello Mastroianni divides his time as a young publicist between sensational events, effete parties, and various bedrooms. Marcello is supposed to be struggling, some might say having an "identity crisis": should he be a serious writer or continue churning out his gossip column? After his friend Steiner, an intellectual and would-be writer, murders his children and commits suicide, Marcello abandons his former ambitions and assumes the role...
Usually a bald plot summary does not do justice to a movie; in this case, the resume hangs together better than the original screenplay. The script and Mastroianni's colorless acting do not focus enough attention on Marcello's character to make his fate a compelling subject. Since he is the only character to appear continuously throughout the film, he should have unified and connected the monotonous scenes of debauchery that follow each other in lubricious profusion. Through Marcello's eyes, we see one depraved spectacle after another. Individually these sordid vignettes succeed quite well, but, taken together, they...
...those seven nights, Fellini guides the hero, a reporter (Marcello Mastroianni) who stands for Everyman, through successive stages of degradation. First the reporter casually leaves the girl (Yvonne Furneau) who really loves him and goes off with a rich bitch who seems to symbolize ancient Rome itself, the Great Whore of Revelation. Then he tries a popular sex substitute, a pumpkin-breasted, pea-brained Hollywood star (played by Anita Ekberg). On the third night, he covers a fake miracle involving a tree in which the Madonna has supposedly been manifested. When the miracle fails to transpire, the crowd attacks...
...full credit. Unfortunately, Moviemaker Dassin must also bear most of the blame for the rest, which is mildly but consistently awful. Adapted crudely from La Loi, Roger Vailland's fine Prix Goncourt novel of 1957, Hot Wind is laden with too many big European names (Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Brasseur, Paolo Stoppa, in addition to Montand and Mercouri). When not glumly stumbling over each other or aggressively hogging the camera, the actors all seem loyally determined to play down to Actress Lollobrigida's level, and with the help of the worst dubbing job since Mickey Mouse first...
...burglars in this instance are as amiable a bunch of cabbages as ever put their heads together. One (Renato Salvatori) is a successful baby-carriage thief. Another (Carlo Pisacane) is an old and toothless messenger boy. The third (Marcello Mastroianni) is a no-talent photographer, the fourth (Tiberio Murgia) a fiery Sicilian who thinks that everybody is trying to seduce his unmarried sister (Claudia Cardinale), the fifth (Vittorio Gassman) a preliminary bum who never hits anything but the canvas. Only the sixth (Toto), a renowned but senile safecracker, has any previous criminal experience, and when he sees the quality...