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Bellissima: Leading Ladies of the Italian Screen

Wednesday, August 22, 2012
7:00 p.m. Oh! Sabella!
Dino Risi (Italy/France, 1957)

Imported Print!


(La nonna Sabella). Veteran character actress Tina Pica dominates Dino Risi’s boisterous provincial comedy as Sabella, a grandmother as gravelly, ancient, and immovable as the hills around the little village whose populace she terrorizes from her bedroom window. Arriving in town from Naples, grandson Raffaele (Renato Salvatore) has an eye for a lively, comely ragazza (Sylva Koscina) from across the square, but the tiny and formidable Sabella has other plans for him (and for her long-suffering caretaker sister, whose engagement to a neighbor has lasted into middle age). This being a comedy, all the lovers find their happily-ever-afters, but this being small-town Italy, there is truly no escaping la nonna. Watch for Pica in Bread, Love and Dreams, another comedy of romantic pursuit and provincial mores directed by Risi’s comic peer Luigi Comencini.

—Juliet Clark

• Written by Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, Risi, based on the novel by Campanile. Photographed by Tonino Delli Colli. With Peppino De Filippo, Sylva Koscina, Renato Salvatore, Tina Pica. (95 mins, In Italian with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Cinecittà Luce S.p.A.)