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Arts & Entertainment

'Rice Vice'

Erik J. Martin reviews classic movies playing in or near Oak Lawn.

Ah, there's something about those sultry, sensuous actresses from Italy in the years following World War II. From Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida to Claudia Cardinale and Monica Vitti, Italian cinema has produced quite a zesty variety of gorgeous female thespians.
One of the most eye-catching of them all was Silvana Mangano, formerly a "Miss Rome" beauty pageant winner, whose good looks landed her a plum part in Bitter Rice (1949), directed by Giuseppe De Santis.

Contrary to its title, this classic foreign flick will not leave a bad taste in your mouth. In fact, it's quite the savory and rare delicacy, as evidenced by the fact that it's currently not available on DVD in North America.

Fortunately, St. Xavier University is presenting this film on Thursday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. at McGuire Hall absolutely free as part of its 2010-11 film series—the focus of which is on the experience of labor round the world (previous St. Xavier showings this fall included Chaplin's Modern Times and Gregory Nava's unforgettable El Norte).

Mangano is only one of the reasons why Bitter Rice is a must see. This is a hallmark work in the Italian neorealism period—characterized by tales of toil and strife suffered by the working class, often employing non-professional actors and filmed on location (rent a copy of the unimpeachable Rome, Open City or The Bicycle Thief to see what all the neorealism fuss was about).

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Bitter Rice commences in Northern Italy at the beginning of the rice-planting season. Francesca and Walter (Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman) are two thieves on the run who decide to hide out amidst a throng of female peasant workers. One such proletariat is the earthy and curvaceous Silvana (Mangano), who is eventually so smitten with Walter that she seeks to become his new partner in crime.

This is a movie rife with violence and lusty passions that culminates, symbolically enough, in a slaughterhouse. The "crime doesn't pay" moral to this cautionary tale is more than a bit obvious, but you can't help but admire De Santis' template for verisimilitude, as well as the stylized nod to American inspirations like film noir, hardboiled melodrama and even the western.

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Coming to Oak Lawn in mid-month is the Master's best film of the 40s, Notorious (1946, screening Wednesday, November 17 at 7 p.m. at CineVerse, Oak Lawn's free weekly film discussion group, located at Oak View Center; visit www.cineversegroup.blogspot.com for more details)

Starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as American spies, Notorious is not only one of the best case studies in suspense from Alfred Hitchcock's immense oeuvre, but it's also quite a steamy love story for its time.
The film's title refers to the reputation earned by Alicia (Bergman), a spy known for being a bit of a Paris Hilton playgirl as well as the daughter of a convicted Nazi sympathizer. She begins to fall for the devilishly handsome Devlin (Grant) before she is assigned to infiltrate a cadre of German fascists living surreptitiously in South America, led by Alexander (played by the always spot-on Claude Rains, perhaps classic Hollywood's greatest ever supporting actor).

Her new mission turns off Devlin—after all, the job does involve sleeping with the enemy—but turns on Alexander, although he and his cartel soon begin to suspect her of playing incognito. Without giving away the store, let's just say that it's soon up to Devlin to somehow rescue this damsel in distress, despite his romantic bitterness toward her.

This is no easily dismissible potboiler. Hitchcock's genius, as usual, permeates the proceedings, as clever storytelling, racy dialogue, innovative camera work and memorable performances abound. This is one filmmaker who delighted at thumbing his nose at film censors, who at the time tried to limit each on-screen kiss in a film to three seconds or less. In the famous kissing scene between Devlin and Alicia that begins on her balcony and continues inside her apartment while Devlin makes a phone call, nearly three minutes of slightly interrupted smooching ensue—which amounts to perhaps the most erotic and extended makeout scene in American movies up to that time.

What makes Notorious such delicious dark chocolate is the conflicted characters, as well as the quandary they create for audiences: Devlin is remorselessly cold to Alicia once she agrees to wed and bed Alexander, but he still loves her; Alicia has several skeletons in her closet, but she's performing her patriotic duty as an American spy; and despite being the villain, Alexander is warm and kind to his new bride, and he evokes ample sympathy by the end.

Additionally, this picture's got one of the baddest matriarchs ever to grace the screen: Alexander's mother, played with icy aplomb by Leopoldine Konstantin, the quintessential mother-in-law from hell.

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