Dustin Hoffman and Stefania Sandrelli Star in Pietro Germi's 'Alfredo, Alfredo'

Browsing Amazon, I stumbled upon a rare find- Pietro Germi's 1972 film Alfredo, Alfredo starring Dustin Hoffman and Stefania Sandrelli.

The film stars a very young and handsome Dustin Hoffman and equally stunning Stefania Sandrelli. Hoffman is Alfredo Sbisà, a down-to-earth, shy guy who falls in love with the beautiful Maria Rosa (Stefania Sandrelli). The film begins with Alfredo (Dustin Hoffman) and (Stefania Sandrelli) as they meet with a lawyer to finalize their divorce. As Alfredo contemplates the spell that Stefania has cast on him, he tells their story through a sequence of flashbacks beginning on the fateful night they met.

Little by little, Maria Rosa reveals her controlling, jealous tendencies, which Alfredo believes marriage will solve. But after the two marry, life gets more chaotic and ultimately becomes unbearable. During a rare night out with his best friend, Alfredo meets Carolina (Carla Gravina), the polar opposite of Maria Rosa. They fall in love and suddenly, Alfredo finds himself the leader in the movement to make divorce legal in Italy. Although the film is a comedy, the story is complex and tackles real-life issues of personality disorders and emotional abuse. It’s not a very well-known movie, but an example of the masterful storytelling by Germi’s generation of iconic filmmakers. The film won a David Di Donatello for Best Film and scored Hoffman Honorary Citizenship in the town of Ascoli Piceno, located in the central region of Marche, where it was shot.

Italy's affection for Hoffman has continued through the years with invitations to appear on several television shows including the annual music festival in San Remo. Click here to check out a clip of Hoffman and Fiorello.

Hoffman was recently in Rome shooting Donato Carrisi's L'uomo del labirinto (Into the Labyrinth) at Cinecittà opposite actor Toni Servillo. The film is expected to be released later this year. Click here for more information.

Alfredo, Alfredo is not available to stream as of now, but the DVD is available on Amazon. Click here to purchase the DVD. There is currently an English-dubbed version available on YouTube. I'm usually in favor of purchasing films but since this is such a rarity, I will share it.

Follow this link to watch the film on YouTube...

Comments

Alessandro Gassmann: Born to Act

Alessandro Gassmannin his directorial debut "Razzabastarda" Alessandro Gassmann is the son of the iconic Italian actor/director Vittorio Gassman and French actress Juliette Mayniel. He was born in 1965 and grew up around cinema royalty. He made his cinema debut in 1982 at the age of 17 in his father's autobiographical film, "Di padre in figlio." He went on to study his craft under his father's direction at the Theatre Workshop of Florence. Vittorio Gassman was very active in theater and seemed just as comfortable on stage as he did in front of the camera. Known for his powerful interpretations of Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradiso," it is no surprise that he nurtured his son's acting aspirations on stage before he launched his career in television and film. One of Gassmann's strong qualities, which he undoubtedly inherited from his father is his incredible range and ease in going from genre to genre. He can play ...

The Sweetness and Genius of Giulietta Masina

Fellini and Masina on the set of "La Strada" As open-hearted and sunny as Federico Fellini was dark and complex, they were perfect counterpoints during a half-century of marriage and professional collaboration. Nicknamed a “female Chaplin” and described by Chaplin himself as the actress who moved him most, Giulietta Masina confronted the tragedy of her characters with an eternal innocence and enthusiasm that gave Italians hope in the most challenging of times. Born in 1921 in San Giorgio di Piano, a commune north of Bologna, Masina was the oldest of four children born to a father who was a music professor and violinist and a mother who was a grade-school teacher. Her parents sent her as a child to live in Rome with her widowed aunt while she attended school there. As Masina took an early interest in gymnastics, her aunt saw in her a passion for performing and encouraged her to pursue acting. So after high school, Masina attended Rome’s La...

Ornella Muti: Five decades of Acting and Still Going Strong

Ornella Muti was born Francesca Romana Rivelli in Rome in 1955 to a Neapolitan father and an Estonian mother. She began her career as a model during her teenage years and made her film debut in 1970 with “La Moglie più bella” (The Most Beautiful Wife). Her follow-up role was in the 1971 film, “Sole nella pelle” (Sun on the Skin), in which she played the daughter of wealthy parents who runs off with a hippie they don’t approve of. The film offers a telling journey through Italian society in the seventies, with its political climate, breathtaking seaside, and the styles and cars of that time. Much of the film is set amid the sunny Italian seaside and captures the innocence and beauty of first love. Muti made her American film debut in 1980 with "Flash Gordon." She played the role of Princess Aura. She’s appeared in two other American films, including “Oscar,” directed by John Landis and starring Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, and Sylvester Stallone. In 1992, she w...

A Conversation with Documentary Filmmaker Luigi Di Gianni

His documentary films have given voice to a people who would have otherwise been forgotten while preserving rituals and traditions no longer practiced. Visually stunning and emotionally moving, they reflect an Italy we’re not used to seeing in cinema. Born in Naples in 1926, Luigi Di Gianni captured a dimension of Italy that people outside the South didn’t even know existed. He began his career working in the region of Basilicata, which back then was referred to as Lucania. He first visited the region with his parents when he was a boy. His father, being from the Lucanian village of Pescopagano, wanted to show his son his homeland. That trip made an impression on the 9-year-old and created a deep affection that would one day inspire him to return. “I always remained very emotional about returning to this part of my homeland of Lucania,” he says. “It seemed like a different planet compared to Rome, where I lived. The tiring journey, the unpaved roads, the difficulti...

The Anthology Film Archives Presents: The Italian Connection: Poliziotteschi and Other Italo-Crime Films of the 1960s and '70's

June 19 – June 29 Influenced both by 1960s political cinema and Italian crime novels, as well as by French noir and American cop movies like "Dirty Harry" and "The French Connection," many Italian filmmakers in the late-60s and early-70s gradually moved away from the spaghetti western genre, trading lone cowboys for ‘bad’ cops and the rough frontier of the American west for the mean streets of modern Italy. Just as they had with their westerns, they reinvented the borrowed genre with their inimitable eye for style and filled their stories with the kidnappings, heists, vigilante justice, and brutal violence that suffused this turbulent moment in post-boom 1970s Italy. The undercurrent of fatalism and cynicism in these uncompromising movies is eerily reminiscent of the state of discontent in Italy today. ‘The Italian Connection’ showcases the diversity and innovation found in the genre, from the gangster noir of Fernando Di Leo’s "Caliber 9" ...

Italian Cinema Today

Search This Blog