The Sword and the Cross 1956
Sold as slaves to a wealthy Roman, Lea and Esther, two Carthaginian sisters, are offered as gifts to the ambitious daughter of a proconsul and end up involved in spite of themselves in a dangerous game of power.
Sold as slaves to a wealthy Roman, Lea and Esther, two Carthaginian sisters, are offered as gifts to the ambitious daughter of a proconsul and end up involved in spite of themselves in a dangerous game of power.
A family man travelling for work, Paolo Bianchi, meets on a train a lonely girl, Maria. He sees her again on a bus and she reveals him that she's in troubles: she's pregnant, her baby's father has left her and she doesn't know how to tell to her parents that she's not married. She asks Paolo to play the role of her husband and he accepts....
A Faustian tale about an old woman who makes a pact with Mephisto to regain her youth, but in return she must stay away from love. After making the deal, she meets two brothers who fall in love with her.
Six episodes (adapted from as many short stories: Gozzano, D'Annunzio, Guido Rocca, Marino Moretti, Alba de Céspedes and Oreste Biancoli), six love stories set in different moments in italian recent history.
Based on Théophile Gautier's novel of the same name, the film tells of the tragic love affair of Ottavio de Saville. He falls madly in love with Madame Prascovie Labinska, a woman very faithful to her husband, the Polish count Olaf Labinski. Alarmed by the growing physical and mental weariness of the desperate young man, his relatives and friends decide to turn to Doctor Balthazar, who has just returned from a trip to the Indies where he was initiated into the secrets of Brahman.
The story is the harried attempt of a Sicilian partisan, as part of the risorgimento, to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the revered revolutionary to rescue part of his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters many colorful Italians, differing in class and age, and holding political opinions of every type. There is a key train scene, and the film ends on the battlefield, Italian unification a success, despite brutal losses.
In Florence, at the time of Lorenzo de Medici, known also as Lorenzo the Magnificent, the aristocrat brothers Chiaramantesi rule with an iron fist the streets of the city. Ruthless and fierce, the two brothers have chosen as their special victim the innocent and harmless Giannetto. Even though determined to not react to the cruel pranks of the brothers, Giannetto is forced to take a stand when Ginevra, a beautiful girl that works in the Chiaramantesi household, is dragged into the game. To defend his honor and protect the girl, Giannetto works out a fiendish plot that will end in blood and madness.
Nine episodes about life in Italy in the period just before its economic boom.
A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.
Mario and the new kid Franco gradually become the best of friends, but their friendship is tested when one of them wins a competition.
A selection of Hamlet’s most famous scenes are reproduced in this Italian production from 1910.
Four criminals commit a robbery at a soccer stadium, and then split up to try to hide separately from the police.
In the military academy of the Nisida Air Force a new course begins which sees among the new recruits called "chicks": Giorgio, forced by his father after he squandered millions at the gaming table; De Montel son of a general, Mario who wants to follow in the footsteps of his father who died in combat; Antonio who declares himself Neapolitan while coming from the province and Ugo who comes from the north.
Bruno, a chauffeur having some problem in keeping a job, meets one morning Mariuccia, a taxi driver’s daughter working as a perfumery’s shop assistant, and trying to impress her, pretending to be rich, uses his employer’s car to took her on a trip to the lakes, but things don’t work as planned and to conquer Mariuccia’s hearth won’t be so easy…
The baron of Santafusca, descended from a noble family, leads a dissipated life. To pay debts he is forced to sell his house. He tries to steal from the house of a very rich priest and, surprised during the theft, he kills the priest, and then throws the body in an abandoned well. He continues his life of revelries and luxury, until the remorse for the crime trigger a process of self-destruction. The nightmares of the baron, tormented by the only evidence left of the murder, the hat of the priest ,drags him into a daring and hallucinated series of ups and downs to the brink of insanity and jail.
In 19th century southern Italy (near Melfi, Basilicata), a small force of soldiers fight in the hills against the bandits who are holding their country to ransom.
The film follows men from all walks of life, seeking to give meaning to their lives and rediscover their inner peace during a retreat in the “House of Silence”. For three days, they meditate on their lives.
Giovanni peddles useless pens in the streets of Rome with his sidekick Francesco, but his college-student daughter thinks he is a rich industrialist. She falls in love with a rich guy and when her father tells her the trust about their financial situation she drops her fiance and refuses food. Luckily, the guy's parents give their consent to the marriage anyway.
A countryside adventure: two siblings, ill at ease in a subordinate social position, challenge the owner Alessandro; Giuseppe doesn’t want to work for him, while Carmela wants to force him to love her. However, class conflict isn’t hidden by emotions and characters.