FROM the Archive of Alex's Forgotten Gems: Giornata balorda, 1960, is an Italian gem from the early New Wave Age that dropped completely out of sight for no good reason: The old English release Title was "The view from the Balcony" but I would go with "One Crazy Day"-- which would be a direct translation of the original Italian title. One reason it might have gotten lost in the shuffle is perhaps due to the titular similarity with a very well known theater piece of the time, "A view from the Bridge! ~~ Director was Mauro Bolognini, 1960, the B/w picture is based on a Moravia story, scripted by PASOLINI -- I saw this in Berkeley around 1960 when it first came out and was immediately impressed that here we had a quintessentially no-nonsense, unpretentious, totally realistic, down-to-earth Italian movie -- Neo-realismo updated with sixties touches and no artsy-artsy symbolism or in group jokes. I would love to see it again but it seems to have disappeared entirely. -- Basic Plot: A philandering Alfie type guy played by French actor Jean Sorrel starts out in a gritty balconied multi-family apartment project the life of which is shown with almost documentary type matter-of-factness, finds out that a woman he's had sex with is knocked up, splits the scene and ends up at the beach in this One Crazy Day -- all delivered in ROME dialect all the way. If I had just one Italian film to show to represent Italian film of the sixties, this would be it -- ahead of all the Fellini's and Antonionis of the time -- but they would of course follow as Backup in "Italian Cinema 10". Professore De Leone, cinema know-it-all --or Nothing at All!
Review of From a Roman Balcony
