Salvatori pays a visit to his old ma who is bedridden in a gloomy old people’s home. He promises her that pretty soon he’ll be rich and they’ll live together in their house. The young man is hired as a catering assistant in a desirable mansion, but the owner of the place is dying. The wife and the daughter are trying to regain the old man’s love and affection while the son is busy gathering his friends for a feast.
Director: Franco Brusati. AKA Disorder
Stars: Sami Frey, Louis Jourdan, Curd Jürgens, Antonella Lualdi, Tomas Milian, Renato Salvatori, Jean Sorel, Susan Strasberg, Alida Valli, Georges Wilson, Marisa Belli, Emma Baron, Adriana Asti, Lia Angeleri.
This film is crowded with the blessings of neorealism influences: beautiful locations, captured with great cinematography, as well as an attractive and talented cast. Perhaps though, it is too crowded? While each vignette is a joy to watch, they lack accord. It’s like a dish with all the right ingredients, but the portions are off. I enjoyed it enough that it makes me want to see Franco Brusati’s later works. This film was only his second, and has that feel of a vision in the shadow of other director-heroes. He won awards and nominations for later works, and you can certainly see brilliance in “the disorder” struggling to find its own voice.
24:10 … face it, your Dad is an asshole (an appropriate part fur Curt Jürgens, I may add, no acting required …). Some Dads are thag way. 🤷
26:20 … that is the kind of asshole he was in real life as well. 🤮🤮 Brusati knew why he took him for that part.
1:28:41 “Everything’s so confused”.
This sums up this movie. It is a mess of un- and underdevelopped ideas. Acting is OK, photography fine, music great, but the content is … well, what IS the content????