Marcello Mastroianni – The Magnificent 60s

A Place for Lovers (1968) ****

I’ve marked this up since my previous viewing of it. And that’s an exceptionlly rare occurrence. What may not have suited the 1960s audience accustomed to standard boy-meets-girl boy-loses-girl even with whatever complications were available at the time, this should chime more with a contemporary audience seeking more reality and less glorification in a love story.

Not quite the Hollywood romance, too much bellyaching from the male for a start, and a couple of years before Love Story (1971) gave terminal illness a box office shot in the arm, but nonetheless very much an adult love affair and far from deserving a place in the top 50 worst films of all time.

For a start director Vittorio De Sica plays around with audience expectations. This always has the feel of a romance that could end at any time, of characters not quite sure of the other person’s feelings, real love or just sex, the sense of not knowing where this could go, and of where, emotionally, they find themselves. And it begins with confusion, a blaring horn in the background, a close-up of Julia (Faye Dunaway), and then she jiggles around with some bricks in a wall before retrieving a key and finding her way inside a grand though modern Italian pallazo. You’ve no idea why she is here and I guess neither does she.

There’s been no meet-cute and there’s no real intimation of how the attraction began except, judging from a brief flashback, they must have bumped into each other at an airport. That’s my conclusion anyway because the details of the actual meeting are never clarified, like a lot of what subsequently goes on. She hides information from him, he does the same, so for a time feelings are not spelled out. It’s clandestine in all the wrong ways. There’s a separation, a distance, characters often seen in very long shot. Sometimes there are physical barriers between them, a high fence in one instance, as if true intimacy is impossible.

Still no sign of the man she has come to visit. She rescues a stray dog from the town dog collector. It’s an exceptionally grand house, classically designed, marble floors, paintings and artistic artefacts all over the place, but no clutter. When Valerio (Marcello Mastroianni) arrives – it’s his house – he checks the labels on her luggage, presumably finding out her full name, possibly her address, possibly accustomed to lovers providing false information on both counts. We learn he’s a safety-conscious racing driver, a man who requires barriers.

They are on a deadline already. She is only in Italy for a further two days. This is a lie. She has 10 days at her disposal but wants to set the pace, heat up the sexual atmosphere. They make love beside a lake. He takes her to dinner with friends where the entertainment is a lecture on sexual positions shown in art. But after someone suggests a game of what we would these days term speed-dating, he calls an end to the affair, jealous that she would consider spending any time in close proximity to another man.

So that’s it. Grand love affair dead and buried after just one day. Except she turns up next day at a practice at a racing circuit. After they reconcile, she watches in a car mirror as he makes a call in a phone box – speaking to his wife or another lover, we never find out, except her reaction explains it must be either.

There’s little of the sparkling dialog found in Hollywood romances, especially for audiences who grew up on the Tracy-Hepburn pictures, but she tells him that “if you put all the houses I have lived in you would make a good little town” and not just that she had lived a peripatetic lifestyle but that she also had six grandfathers so a rather fluid upbringing. She confesses now she has more time to spare, she just wanted him to ask for it, being stricken by her potential absence an indication in her eyes of true love.

So this is a fragile individual, her smile is always hesitant, external confidence hiding vulnerability. Her face is never flush with passion. When he asks why she never revealed her terminal illness, she replies, “I can’t take any more sad eyes.” There’s an ironic ending.

It is of course set against glorious backdrops but instead of letting the audience wallow in the love affair, as would be the Hollywood temptation, De Sica finds some way of undercutting it. Valerio is never quite sure of her and she is never quite sure of him. Their pasts remain hidden. Their lovemaking beside the lake is interrupted by a hunter bagging game. She coos over a baby only to discover it has an ugly father. She drives too fast even with a racing driver in the passenger seat and she clearly has suicidal tendencies, the love affair almost a salve for her despair.

We could have been presented with the suave charming Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 1960) cliché from a dozen Italian films, but instead he is often jealous, annoyed, real. Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) plays a character who never knows where she stands with her emotions, accepting her fate one moment, determined to end her life the next, and yet still time to dally in a love affair that of course can have no future.

Vittorio De Sica (Two Women, 1960) has fashioned a picture that is neither uplifting nor downhearted, a love affair that lives just for the moment, but with implied complications that could at any moment wreck it, a romance always teetering on the edge.

I’ve no idea what compelled Harry Medved to include this in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, published in 1978, but you might easily question his judgement on discovering that his list includes Sergei Eisenstein epic Ivan the Terrible, Alain Resnais’s hypnotic Last Year at Marienbad, Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown, Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn and even such passable entertainments as The Omen.

Maybe you’ve been put off giving this a whirl thanks to the Medved seal of disapproval. A Place for Lovers is not the greatest film ever made, but it’s certainly far from the worst, two striking actors and a director who could never make a terrible picture make sure of that. And, as I mentioned, exerts greater appeal for the contemporary viewer.

No DVD available so you will need to check out Ebay or streaming.

The 10th Victim (1965) ****

Sexy, stylish, sci-fi that spawned a host of imitators. Its key issue, population growth, has only worsened since the movie appeared though killing for sport goes back to the Roman gladiators and government-sponsored killing – aka genocide – is hardly so novel. And it sets up a feminist perspective – the female killer is deadlier than the male, experience counting for everything in the assassination game.

None of the villainous females in the decade’s myriad spy films, not even the vicious pairs that gave Bulldog Drummond such a headache, could match the lethal striptease performed by authorized huntress Caroline (Ursula Andress) which culminates in a volley of bullets from her bra. Caroline is hoping to strike gold with her tenth killing, which not only brings a hefty financial bonus (and retirement) in itself, but could bring a massive bounty if captured on television and to that end she has negotiated a sponsorship deal with the Ming Tea Company, and adopts the façade of TV reporter.

Her potential victim is Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) who would be rich enough from his six killings except his earnings have been squandered by ex-wife Lidia (Luce Bonifassy) and mistress Olga (Elsa Martinelli), not to mention the upkeep of his parents who he, illegally, has kept alive. To maintain his lifestyle he is the face of a cult worshipping the setting of the sun, but that gig is threatened by a rival cult of moon worshippers.

Set in 2079 in the aftermath of World War Three “The Big Hunt” is viewed as a legitimate method of curbing the instincts of those with violent tendencies, just the type to thirst for a fourth global conflagration. Participants must switch between being killer and potential victim, five times in each role. Naturally, victim can also take down assassin.

While attracted to Caroline, Marcello is nonetheless suspicious of the sexy reporter who in the course of claiming to be doing a story on the sexual habits of Italian men attempts to entice him to the ancient Temple of Venus in Rome where, naturally enough, sexy dancers in sexy costumes will be part of the show.

Assassination pictures are always complicated – check out The Manchurian Candidate (1962) or The Mechanic (1972) a decade later – and here the unexpected factor is love. But in the old love vs. money dynamic there’s a considerable twist, both protagonists seemingly more intent on worldly gain than enriching their souls. So it’s a twisty picture as killer and victim seek to outwit the other by any means, romance considered an acceptable weapon.

Stylistically, it’s a visual delight as director Elio Petri (A Quiet Place in the Country, 1968) meshes the burgeoning Pop Art movement with the classical architecture of ancient Rome, and the Colosseum, dismissed in the film as a unsuitable locale, though a reminder of the origins of single combat. Clever without being pretentious, sexy without veering on the side of voluptuousness, the approach is mostly ironic and can easily be viewed as a social and political commentary. Every serious element is undercut, even post-killing some bureaucrat rushes in with an official judgement on the murder. And how could you possibly take seriously the blond barnet of Marcello Mastroianni (A Place for Lovers, 1968)? That’s almost an ironic play in itself.

Austin Powers (1997) in comedic fashion took this as its stylistic cue, while other movies as wide-ranging as Death Race 2000 (1975), The Running Man (1987), Battle Royale (2000) and The Hunger Games (2012) emphasized the violence and/or political undertones.

But none of these boasted such a stunning cast. Mastroianni performs these disaffected roles so well, while as a more than worthy adversary the generally-underrated Ursula Andress is in the form that made The Southern Star (1969) such a pleasure. Throw in Elsa Martinelli (Maroc 7, 1967) and what else could you ask for. Based on the short story The Seventh Victim – later novelized – by Robert Sheckley.

A fun ride that still makes you think.

Shoot Loud…Louder, I Don’t Understand (1966) ***

The Raquel Welch picture nobody’s seen. Which is a shame because she demonstrates considerable comedic flair. And there’s a freshness and naturalness – almost a youthful gaucheness – about her that’s lacking in other movies where she was developing her more iconic acting style.

Tania (Raquel Welch) literally bumps into sculptor Alberto (Marcello Mastroianni) when his latest acquisition, an iron gate (locked naturally), blocks a footpath. Intrigued, she enters his Aladdin’s cave of artefacts and is frightened by his mad uncle who communicates via fireworks. With a start like that, you’re either headed for gentle romance between sensible young woman and less sensible artist, the usual on-off on-off scenario, or, this being quirky Italy and the director the even quirkier Eduardo Di Filippo (better known as a playwright – Saturday, Sunday, Monday) it’s going to follow a different route.

*While Raquel Welch is for the most part costumed in alluring dresses she does not wear a bikini as in the poster at the top*.

And so it does. Alberto thinks he has witnessed the murder of neighbor Amitrano (Paolo Ricci) – blood-soaked glove one clue – but when he confesses it might have been a delusion, something to which he is prone, he is arrested because the dead man was a gangster. That sets a surreal tone – chairs raining from the sky, anyone?, a coffin full of potatoes, fortune tellers – and for some reason Alberto (who has received a bang on the head) begins to think Tania is also a figment of his imagination.

You can see where that idea came from, the delectable Tania in cleavage-resplendant form wearing dresses with clasps that appear unwilling to do their job. But on the other hand, he is handsome enough, with an artistic beard, and I doubt it would be the first time he had attracted a beautiful woman.

Tania is certainly a character, driving around in a sports car (with pink drapes) that appears to float rather than drive, containing another receptacle for a blood-soaked glove and with hot food in the glove compartment. In fact, she carries around a goodly supply of this local delicacy in case she might feel hungry in a police station or what have you.

Raquel Welch wasn’t girl of the year when this was made but by the time it was released in the USA in 1968 she had made a name for herself, in particular being named Star of the Year by one of the industry’s exhibiting organisations.

There’s certainly a bunch of dream-like sequences. After he finds a bloody knife and bloodied clothes Alberto gets punched on the head by a turbaned man, only to wake momentarily and fan his face with a fan, the kind of imagery Fellini could have dreamed up in his sleep. But this is set against a realistic backdrop, neighbors screaming at each other in the traditional Italian manner.

So, what we are left with is a perfectly acceptable comedy where Alberto is accused of a crime he didn’t commit but the film might be too Italian for most tastes. This was made before La Welch achieved screen notoriety through the donning of a fur bikini and critics tended to look on Mastroianni (A Place for Lovers, 1968) as a serious actor rather than someone mixed up in this kind of gentle tomfoolery. I thought he was excellent in the role. But that was par for the course here, everyone dismissed.

De Filippo (Ghosts – Italian Style, 1967) didn’t have the kind of critical following ascribed to the likes Fellini and Antonioni so if this fitted into his normal style nobody was aware of it. But I’ve a feeling that this quirkiness was one of his hallmarks.

If you accept it on face value without looking to insert some kind of meaning then it makes perfect sense. As I mentioned, although her voice is dubbed, Raquel Welch (Bandolero, 1968) comes across very well, especially as, despite the enticing attire, she is not required to be all sexed-up or carry the dramatic weight of the tale, unlike the westerns where she is generally an object of lust and continually attempting to assert independence.

Having said that, this is particularly hard to track down, so you might not think it’s worth the bother. But, of course, if you are a Welch completist, nothing will be too much trouble. However, you’ll need to scour the second-hand markets to find a DVD.