1. THE WHITE SHEIK (LO SCEICCO BIANCO)
(Federico Fellini; 1951) (star)(star)(star)(star)
Hilarious comedy about a provincial woman (Brunella Bovo) on a trip to Rome, who meets the object of her adoration: the vain hero (Alberto Sordi) of a series of Roman fumetti or photo-comics. (In Italian; English subtitled.) (available on video)
2. IVITELLONI
(Fellini; 1953) (star)(star)(star)(star)
Most of Fellini’s past bubbles up in his films. Here he recounts his misspent youth in Rimini, in Italy, with his buddies, turning it into a memorable portrait of the artist as a young dog, trapped in provincial high-jinks and dead-end romances. With Franco Interlinghi as Monaldo (Fellini’s surrogate). (In Italian; English subtitled.) (video)
3. BIG DEAL ON MADONNA ST. (I SOLITI IGNOTI)
(Mario Monicelli; 1958) (star)(star)(star)(star)
This great heist thriller-comedy about a gang of crooks botching a robbery, is, in some ways, a sendup of Jules Dassin’s French heist classic “Rififi”: the bungling Roman hoods (Vittori Gassmann, Marcello Mastroianni, Toto and Renato Salvatori) try to drill their way through an apartment into a pawn shop, failing spectacularly. (In Italian; English subtitled.) (DVD/video)
4. DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE (DIVORZIO ALL/ITALIANA)
(Pietro Germi; 1961) (star)(star)(star)(star)
The great, dark, Italian sex comedy, with Marcello Mastroianni and Stefania Sandrelli. In Germi’s smash hit, the fact that Catholic Italy prohibited legal divorce drives a lazy Sicilian husband (Mastroianni) — who loathes his dull wife and is obsessed with his nubile cousin (Sandrelli) — to a complex murder scheme. (In Italian; English subtitled.) (DVD/video)
5. YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW (IERI, OGGI, DOMANI)
(Vittorio De Sica; 1963) (star)(star)(star)(star)
De Sica’s third foreign language film Oscar-winner may be, with “Miracle in Milan,” the most enjoyable of all his films: a romantic comedy in three episodes and a showcase for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni — who play, in turn, impoverished Romans manipulating the pregnancy laws; a cold-hearted rich Milanese couple; and a prostitute and seminarian who live across a Roman street from each other. (In Italian; English subtitled.) (video)
