Li'l Duce's Reviews Palace

[titoli]

At 41'48" Tot? does the same gesture replicated by Pesci in Goodfellas at the end of the "funny" scene.

[titoli]

Miseria e nobilt? (1954)

This is really one of the funniest movies ever produced in Italy (together with the companion piece Un turco napoletano. There's a third on not as funny). Sophia Loren is simply astonishing. Some of the funniest scenes are known by heart by most italian people.  Here with english subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxOslIibVJI

[cigar joe]

Miseria e nobilt? (1954)

This is really one of the funniest movies ever produced in Italy (together with the companion piece Un turco napoletano. There's a third on not as funny). Sophia Loren is simply astonishing. Some of the funniest scenes are known by heart by most italian people.  Here with english subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxOslIibVJI

thanks

[dave jenkins]

Huh, that opening credit gag was used in The Importance of Being Ernest (1952), also a stage play.

[cigar joe]

Miseria e nobilt? (1954) watched it, it was chuckle inducing.

[titoli]

Miseria e nobilt? (1954) watched it, it was chuckle inducing.

Some of the effects get lost as the passing from the neapolitan accent which can't be rendered simply with an english translation (apart from the letter scene, where the client mangles the language but with an another accent, while in the english translation of course you just have the mangling). In the scene of the introduction of the sham nobles to the Loren's father the 4 impersonators speak with a kind of refined italian by, for example, making open vowels closed. And so on.

[cigar joe]

Some of the effects get lost as the passing from the neapolitan accent which can't be rendered simply with an english translation (apart from the letter scene, where the client mangles the language but with an another accent, while in the english translation of course you just have the mangling). In the scene of the introduction of the sham nobles to the Loren's father the 4 impersonators speak with a kind of refined italian by, for example, making open vowels closed. And so on.

That's kind of what I figured. It must be like the way the Abbot and Costello classic jokes wouldn't translate I suspect. Stuff like Who's On First and the Racehorse joke below.

Lou Costello: I just bought me a racehorse and I gotta take care of him. What do you feed a horse anyway?
Bud Abbott: Well, a horse eats his fodder.
Lou Costello: He eats his father?
Bud Abbott: Certainly.
Lou Costello: That?s fine. Then what does his father eat?
Bud Abbott: He eats his fodder.
Lou Costello: Well, whata ya know! Then what does the horse?s mother eat?
Bud Abbott: She eats her fodder.
Lou Costello: What are they ? cannibals!!?
Bud Abbott: Certainly not. Every horse has to eat his fodder.
Lou Costello: Oh, I see. He eats his father and then his father eats his father and his mother eats her father and, before you know it, there won?t be no fathers left for Father?s Day!
Bud Abbott: No. No. To feed a horse you take a bag and put his fodder in it.
Lou Costello: You mean you put his father in a bag?
Bud Abbott: That?s right, and you hang his fodder on his nose.
Lou Costello: Now ain?t that a pretty picture ? a horse walking around with his father hangin? on his nose!

Bud Abbott: Well, if you?re gonna run him in a race, if the track is wet will he run well?
Lou Costello: I think so ?
Bud Abbott: What I?m asking is .. . is he a mudder?
Lou Costello: How can he be a mudder? Ain?t a she always a mudder?
Bud Abbott: Certainly not. Sometimes a he makes a better mudder than a she.
Lou Costello: Whata you know. Look, suppose the mama horse has little horses, does that make her a mudder?
Bud Abbott: Well, that depends on her feet.
Lou Costello: Ya learn sumpin? every day, don?t cha?
Bud Abbott: A mudder is a horse that likes to run in mud on account of having sore feet.

[titoli]

The italian version of Many Rivers to Cross (1955) was retitled A Neapolitan in the Far West making the Irishman or Scot speaking with that accent. Of course no distributor would care to import, let alone dub an italian comedy.

Are you going to check  Tot? le Mok??

[cigar joe]

The italian version of Many Rivers to Cross (1955) was retitled A Neapolitan in the Far West making the Irishman or Scot speaking with that accent. Of course no distributor would care to import, let alone dub an italian comedy.

Are you going to check  Tot? le Mok??

yea soon

[titoli]

I've seen that there are now lots of old italian movies, mostly comedies, posted by the same fella who posted the two Tot?, w. english subtitles. I don't know how effective subtitles are, especially w. Tot?, but anyway check these ones:

Tot?, Peppino e la malafemmina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pJW4tmwTo (I don't think you can translate it, but this is a superclassic over here, especially the letter scene)

Il monaco di Monza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDnQuwTgv5k (i like it, but maybe not to everybody's taste)


Some Sordi (w. Cardinale): Bello Onesto Emigrato Australia Sposerebbe Compaesana Illibata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEoshh63NI

Lo Scapolo  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPecZpIm6uA

There are other ones, of course, but these ones are worth watching.

[titoli]

Two movies on the  Great War. Uomini contro:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgYTQQNRBD4

and a real classic: La grande guerra  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wixLm8nm88 (this one hasn't got english subtitles. But you can download them here: https://subtitleshub.net/subtitles/movieid-39829/)

[titoli]

Winterset (1936) What a piece of crap. I read a  contemporary review written by an italian writer who saw it at the Venice Film Festival and led me to think this one was some kind of proto-noir or whatever CJ might like to dub it. Actually it is some heavy melodrama shot on the same RKO sets seen in the Rathbone's Holmes movies, only that this time they are supposed to be NYC's crummiest parts. The plot is dumb, the lines are as corny as you can devise  (courtesy of Maxwell Anderson) and the actors follow suit. Strange that even a Giacomo Debenedetti concentrated on the plot criticizing it but still finding something to be saved.  0/10   

[titoli]

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) I saw it in 1975 but dubbed so I was curious to watch it again to check if it was as good as I remembered it or better. The scenes are well thought up but the problem is that the comic duo is the lamest ever, if I have to judge by this movie. Enjoyable and that's that: 6-7/10 (maybe I'll watch it again 40 years and odds from now).

[titoli]

4 passi fra le nuvole (1942) Some consider it as some kind of precursor of neo-realism, but actually it's a comedy reminding one of Capra and anticipating the lighter italian comedies of the early '50's. The first part, based on misunderstandings, is pleasing but second is too melodramatic. Still a 6-7/10 thanks to Cervi, great as usual, and to the whole cast. P.S. Edith Piaf liked it.     

[titoli]

In the Street (1948) Scorsese gave me the heads up about this in an interview where he names the most important movies about NYC. This shot is not a feature or a documentary but just a series of images caught on not the most elegant streets of the city.