Sophia Loren 4-film
Collection
(Lionsgate DVD)
Picture: Sound:
Extras: Film:
Attila (1954) C/C/D/C+/B-
I Girasoli (1970) C+/C+/D/B
Madame Sans-Gêne (1962) B-/C+/D/B-
Carosella Napoletano (1954) C+/C/D/B
Fresh
from Lionsgate comes this terrific box set that includes 4-feature films
starring the one and only Sophia Loren. The 4-film set is packaged in a really
cool case that comes with 2-discs putting 2 films per disc. While these films might be unfamiliar to
most, they do portray a decent gamut of her career and also demonstrate the
mixture of performances that Ms. Loren had during her entire career, regardless
of how beautiful she always looked and still continues to look even at her
age.
All four
of these films are in color, although Attila
was a full-frame film, while the others are widescreen presentations. Attila is also perhaps the weakest of the
films in this set in terms of picture, sound, and also just the overall film
itself as it was very typical Sword & Sandal wanna-bee film starring Anthony
Quinn as Attila and Loren as Honoria.
While the two leads put in good performances the film just can’t live up
to it’s ambition and the result is a highly forgettable non-epic epic.
The other
weaker film in this set is Madame
Sans-Gêne, which is a problematic film and a second rate version of the
story, especially for those familiar with the 1941 film starring Arletty in the
lead role. Here, Loren looks like she is
bored and with the poor direction and lame script, it’s no wonder. It would appear that the producers just
wanted to ‘milk’ (no pun intended) her beauty for this film and hope they had a
hit, it didn’t really work.
The other
two films in this set though are worth the value and that includes Carosella Napoletano, which was a
Cannes festival winner and Vittorio De Sica’s I Girasoli (Sunflower), which won’t surprise anyone who is familiar
with this filmmaker’s body of work, which is always stunning, especially The Leopard. In De Sica’s film we finally get to see the
emotional side of Loren’s work and realize she can act in all realms of
emotion, as she finds out that her husband (Marcello Mastroianni) who she
thought was dead after fighting in Russia during WWII is actually alive and
remarried! Yikes.
Carosella Napoletano is a charming film starring the
young Loren in a guest appearance along with Italy’s tenors of the time as they
celebrate their heritage and the city of Naples, which years later Loren would
star in a film called It Started In
Naples, which I reviewed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2522/It+Started+In+Naples
All of
the films are presented in Dolby Mono and are acceptable considering the age of
these films for the most part. It would
have been nice to get stereo mixes, especially for the later films, but this
will do for now. The image on all the
films is fairly consistent as all of them are widescreen releases with the
exception of Attila. Madame Sans-Gêne was actually shot in
Super Technirama 70mm with a 2.20 X 1 framing, but looks more like a 2.35 X 1
scope image for this DVD set and by default looks the best, although still
appears dated and does not come close to offering what a 70mm production should
look like. The other films are 16 X 9
(1.78 X 1) and also look a bit dated, but a full restoration would really need
to be done to make much difference and for low-key films like this it just
isn’t feasible sometimes.
Lionsgate
has done a great job getting these films packaged together and also put a bonus
featurette here called Sophia Loren: La
Diva Popolana, which is definitely worth a look or maybe two!
- Nate Goss