Marriage Italian Style (1964)

Filumena (Sophia Loren) was working in a brothel when she first met Domenico (Marcello Mastroianni), and his been his mistress ever since. Upon hearing that he plans to marry as much younger woman Filumena devises a brilliant scheme to convince him that

Beware!!!

You will be charged a premium price for a grainy, dull version of the film. For those who don't think the quality of the transfer should not be part of a review, I suggest that the quality lends to the aesthetics of the original film and its enjoyment.

A poor transfer ruins the viewing experience for the film lover. How bad does the quality have to be before it ruins the experience?

The transfer should be as good as all other digitally remastered films are. That is hardly asking too much.

April 28, 2008

Marriage italian yle

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni at their very best.
One of my favorite foreign movie. April 5, 2008

A wonderful movie, unfairly downgraded for some video problems

Sophia Loren is at the top of her game in this 1964 film by Vittorio de Sica, and she and Marcello Mastroianni display real chemistry acting together. The story is much more than just a slick comedy, and can keep you guessing what's coming next.

Most of the reviews here complain bitterly about the poor quality of the DVD transfer. Well, it isn't great, but I've seen far worse. And it's really only in the first few minutes of the movie that the video quality is especially poor; it improves considerably a little further on, and then remains that way.

At least one reviewer has remarked that without subtitles the video quality is much better. There's a simple explanation for this. There are actually two separate complete copies of the movie on the DVD, taken from different sources. If you'll notice, the Carlo Ponti Italian release (without subtitles) begins with red curtains, whereas the Joseph E Levine American release, with burned-in subtitles, omits that intro. The original Italian copy that was used for that portion of the DVD was in much better condition than the original of the American release.

The bottom line is, if you care more about how sharp your picture is than about the qualities of the movie itself, then this is definitely to be avoided. But if you're able to excuse a less-than-pristine copy of an important film, or alternately, if you can manage some Italian without subtitles, then go for it.

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EDIT: One previous reviewer complained that the movie is dubbed, and another complained that the English version was wanted but the Italian version had been sent.

Neither of the two different copies on this DVD is dubbed into English; both are in the original Italian. I'm not aware of a dubbed version ever having been made. The American release of the movie has subtitles in English (granted, not the best or most complete job of subtitling possible, but not at all bad -- they're in the film stock itself rather than being added for the DVD, and are exactly the same as what you would have seen in a theater in 1964), while the Italian copy does not.

I sense a bit of piling-on in these reviews -- something doesn't meet your highest expectations, and then you find all these 1-star reviews here, which just reinforces your own disappointment, so you add another one instead of putting the situation into perspective. Many of these old Joseph E Levine releases of foreign films are in fair-to-poor condition, and the DVD issuer used the best copy they could find; they didn't screw it up just out of laziness or to annoy people. It's true that with a lot of expensive equipment and an enormous amount of time and labor a film can go through a restoration process where each frame is digitally cleaned up, and perhaps eventually an outfit like Criterion may turn their attention to this one. In the meantime, this is what there is.

So don't buy this DVD unless you're willing to watch a great movie with less-than-perfect video. January 6, 2008

Superb movie badly reproduced

"Marriage, Italian Style" is an excellent movie - the best ever made by Sophia Loren, I believe, but the quality of the reproduction on DVD is terrible. It's dubbed, and the video and audio quality are poor. Should not have made this purchase. March 18, 2007

This DVD is a joke!

Simply and plain... this product is "pirate" quality and tell me about it, i'm from Mexico and I know about piracy.

The box looks like a cheap color copy, the DVD just some black&white letters (i.e. no CD cover) and that's it for $27 bucks (what I paid).

I speak Italian and the quality of sound and picture is good, but for everyone else the english subtitled version has the worst picture & sound quality ever (not to mention the crappy subtitles ho ho ho) August 17, 2006

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