Watch out, spoilers!
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It so happened that I knew Juliet Mazina only from the films of Federico Fellini, which I saw almost everything, although she also starred in other directors, and now I watched just such a film - this is a movie.
Fortunella, made in 1958 by Eduardo de Filippo
However, without Fellini there was not enough, because among the authors of the script he is listed.
Nanda Diotallevi, known as Fortunella (Julietta Mazina), sells all sorts of junk on the market, including stolen ones, which is mined by her cohabitant Peppino (Alberto Sordi), and he even issued a patent for the trade for her, since he evades responsibility in every possible way. Moreover, Nanda even served for him in prison for this reason, he also managed to bring his mistress and when Nanda returns from prison, sees that her place is taken. She runs away from home and at night accidentally meets a strange type bathing in the fountain, who turns out to be Professor Golfiero, and she does not even really believe that he is who he appears to be. But then he is taken away by friends in the car, although they had time to chat and she managed to tell him the story of her origin - they say, she is Princess Guidobaldi, this dream she lives all her life. In all the fuss and adventures of a domestic and sometimes criminal nature, her life passes, she lives with Peppino again, but one day fate brings her back to the professor who decides to take care of her and brings her to his dilapidated house somewhere on the banks of the Tiber. The troupe of wandering actors also wanders there, but for all the breadth of the professor’s soul, who sheltered them, he suffers from endless drunkenness and once provokes an accident during a performance, he is taken away by the police, and Nanda again returns to Peppino. But as Peppino did not dodge responsibility, he still caught stealing Etruscan vases and arrested. Shortly after, Nanda accidentally sees familiar actors who inform her that the professor is in the hospital. When Nanda comes to see him, she realizes it's bad, and when she comes back the next day, he's already dead. And there in the hospital she meets Prince Guidobaldi, who, it turns out, was a relative of the professor, who in their family was considered a black sheep, from him she learns that the professor left his house to her and asked Guidobaldi to take care of her. But, alas, after she tells him her theory of his fatherhood, he debunks it, because at the time when it could happen, he was several years in India. However, she does manage to become a princess, if only in a role on stage.
The film is very good, however, as it seemed to me, the production is somewhat theatrical, which is not surprising, since a lot was connected with the theater de Filippo. I also learned that the melody that Nino Rota later used in the movie The Godfather was written for this film, which was later removed from the Godfather Oscar nominations at the last minute.
