User Reviews

After watching Hollywood movies featuring stereotypes of Italians, it's fascinating watching an Italian film full of stereotypes of Americans - and British.

All movies tend to highlight national vanities even if the intention was reflection and introspection.

Here the scamming of the occupying American forces by the Italians is presented as a virtue whether it's the local mafia boss, workers in the brothels or swarms of streetwise kids. Where victories on the battlefield were elusive for Italy in WW2 these were victories for resilience and initiative.

The film is set against the backdrop of the occupation of Naples in WW2 by the Allied 5th Army of General Mark Clark, strangely called Mark Cork here and played by a slightly stooped Burt Lancaster. Kate Buford stated in her biography of Burt that many considered this his most ignominious role.

The urbane Marcello Mastroianno as Curzio Malaparte, the Italian Liaison officer, ties things together as he explains the facts of life to the naive and credulous Americans.

Random episodes show what happened to the Neapolitans after Italy surrendered and what they did to survive. Like director Liliana Cavani's "The Night Porter" there is no shortage of uncomfortable and nasty scenes.

Among them was the prostituting of boys to Moroccan soldiers. It's a sequence that smacks of truth. The Moroccan Goumiers had a reputation as fearsome soldiers, but also had a reputation for rape. The Italians coined a word for it "Marocchinate". Sophia Loren also had an encounter with them in 1960's "Two Women".

There are amusing episodes; the horde of kids who strip a U. S. Army tank as effectively as ants dissecting a beetle. However other episodes stretch credulity and some are tedious, especially the mobster who sells German prisoners to the Americans by weight.

The film is epic in scale with well-researched uniforms and equipment although it shows American units with both black and white soldiers where in reality the US army was segregated until 1948.

Although it had an eye on the international market, it's all in Italian (English subs) even when people are supposedly speaking English. And what a waste of a resource having Claudia Cardinale in your 2-hour plus movie and giving her 10 minutes of screen time.

The film drags despite bizarre parties, brothels, rape, war scenes, love affairs, an erupting volcano, and more rape. It's episodic nature and weirdness reminded me of another Italian movie: "Fellini's Satyricon".

It's watchable to a point although I couldn't help wondering what was Burt Lancaster thinking?

We're still stunned. Such actors, Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale. And then such a bad, bad movie, unbelievable but true. There's no story line at all. We're jumping from one non plot into another very unclear little not important plot. What a mess it is. Very strange thing happen, for example an American tank is torn apart by about 10 boys in 5 minutes. When the soldiers come back there's nothing left. Offcause: it's very logical and believable. Mastroianni explains to another American officer that this is the way it goes in Naples, Italy. And then there's discrimination. What?! Yes, discrimination. Of black American soldiers, called different, searching for blond... Of soldiers from Morocco, who always have one thing on their mind and only want one thing, the French officer explains to the American general (Burt Lancaster). I'm sorry to write this, it's so stupid: but that's what this movie is! Please don't watch it!