BEFORE SCROLLING TO THE WEB PAGE BELOW ABOUT TINTO BRASS, PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THESE NEWS ITEMS, WHICH ARE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER HAD TO SAY:

AMY GOODMAN:     A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.

It gets worse:

NAOMI WOLF:     On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade — which means three to four thousand warriors — somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is “crowd control” as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology “module package” as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.... The First Brigade is Bush’s force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.... Antoon himself calls the deployment “ominous.” Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.... In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens’ law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed....

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.

Click here to see an interview with Naomi Wolf conducted in early October 2008.

For the past five years or so I hve been hearing rumors that Halliburton has been building (and has now finished building) 800 prisons throughout the USA, not yet functioning, but just waiting for the right crisis. I have not found reliable evidence for the specific quantity, readiness, functionality, locations, or details, but you might be interested in taking a look at page 5 of this Halliburton press release dated 26 January 2006: KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.... Now, really, what are the chances of “an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States”? And what are the “new programs” that could come under “rapid development”?

FOR THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE.


NOW, BACK TO THE MAIN PART OF THE WEB PAGE:


Did you happen to record Monty Python’s Flying Circus when it was shown on PBS back in the 1970s?
Do you still have the tapes?
Is there a TIME-LIFE logo at the end?
If so, please write to me. Thank you!


THE WORKS OF TINTO BRASS


Part 3
APPEASING PRODUCERS


Jump ahead to:

La mia signora
(My Wife)
La donna è una cosa meravigliosa
(Woman Is a Wonderful Thing)
Yankee Heart in His Mouth
(In Fifth Speed)

Il disco volante

(The Flying Saucer, 1964)

A gem! This is one of the last of the great movie comedies. Famous producer Dino De Laurentiis hired Brass to direct Rodolfo Sonego’s satirical political parable, Il disco volante, starring Alberto Sordi in four rôles, along with Silvana Mangano and Monica Vitti. Brass’s direction is flawlessly smooth, Sordi is at his most brilliant with his priceless doubletakes, and the film is screamingly funny. But since Brass did not write or edit it, Il disco volante is not a true-blue Brass film, though its anti-authoritarianism is certainly congenial to his outlook. The story concerns witnesses to some flying saucers that land in a village near Venice. They spin enough yarns that the police are brought in to arrest the visitors, but plans go awry when the aliens just want to party and when a few villagers start trafficking in Martians. Good movies are impossible to describe. Good comedies are even more impossible to describe. Take my word for it, though, you’ll like it!

Problems: Since production insisted that someone other than Tinto Brass edit the film, some scenes are rather clumsily edited. For instance, the camera zooms in and out on Berruti as he’s climbing the countess’s stairs; obviously this shot was to have been intercut with some other now-missing material. Also, some scenes are missing, most sadly Vittoria’s ingenious solution to her family’s problems. And two scenes were re-ordered in a wrong-headed attempt to simplify the narrative.

The cast of characters.

The international title was originally supposed to be The Martians, but wiser heads prevailed in time for the English dub to be entitled The Flying Saucer.

Tinto Brass and Alberto Sordi behind the scenes

QUESTION: We know that Embassy Pictures released this film in the US, because we have a copy, with a 1967 copyright date. But no trade annual or other reference work that we have ever run across makes a mention of this. Does anyone have details about the whens and wheres? My guess, if I may infer from some comments on the Internet, is that Embassy released this only to local television stations as a filler. I also infer that this is probably what happened, because of the way the English-language opening credits were formatted. The few people in the USA who have even heard of this movie seem to think of it as a grade-Z sci-fi cheapie. It’s not grade-Z, it’s not sci-fi, and it’s not a cheapie. It’s a grade-A comedy filled with some of Italy’s finest performers, and it’s a tour de force showcase for Sordi. At least the Italians went wild over it, and it’s still fondly remembered there.

Sci-fi buffs who seek out this movie only to check out all its nifty sci-fi effects will be terribly disappointed. But if you’re a comedy buff, you won’t be disappointed at all. Believe me.

ANOTHER QUESTION: One of the doctors in the lunatic asylum sure looks like Alberto Sorrentino. Is it?

PERSONAL COMMENT: Like I say, I have memories of 1964, when I was all of four years old. And here’s another maddening memory. As soon as Brigadiere Berruti approaches the countess’s mansion, we hear the haunting strains of John Foster singing Ballando con te. I recognized it instantly. But I can’t place it. Maybe it played on the easy-listening stations when I was four? Can anyone help me figure out where I heard it? I heard it more than once. And I surely heard it many, many times. There’s no other way I would have recognized it so instantly. What’s memory for if you can’t use it?

“Do you recognize me?”
“No, Signor Marzicano.”

SOURCES:
Sci-Fi Made in Italy
DEAD LINKS:
http://www.kwalbertosordi.kataweb.it/biografia/biografia3_61-70.htm
http://www.ciak2000.it/bio/vitti_be.htm

A favorable response from the locals:
The Veneto in Films

Eleonora Rossi Drago and her Martian lover in a deleted scene that I would give my right arm to see He should have kept his mouth shut
 
 

Screenwriter Rodolfo Sonego’s views (he didn’t like it?—huh?—maybe it was something he ate):
Caiuspace: Fantatesi
DEAD LINK:
http://www.sceneggiatori.com/ritratti/sonego/intervi.html, but click on it anyway because it turns out I saved a copy. If you own the copyright, please write to me. Thanks!

Beatrice, I beg of you, for the last time, will you please get down from that horse?


These Italian-language PAL VHS editions (no English subtitles) still pop up on the used market. Try your luck. (PAL VHS will not play on US equipment.)

Una produzione Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica S.p.A.

Il disco volante

Originally released on Wednesday, 23 December 1964

Regia di (directed by) Tinto Brass
Prodotto da (produced by) Dino De Laurentiis
Soggetto e sceneggiatura di
(original story and screenplay)
Rodolfo Sonego
Produzione organizzata e diretta da Giorgio Adriani a.d.c.
Scenografia e arredamento
(art direction and set décor)
Elio Costanzi
Il “Disco Volante” e i costumi dei Marziani sono stati ideati da (the “flying saucer” and martian costumes created by) Gianni Polidori
Direttore della fotografia
(director of photography)
Bruno Barcarol
Aiuti registi (assistant directors) Gianni Nerattini, Carla Cipriani
Operatore alla macc. (camera operator) Alvaro Lanzoni
Operatore ai fuochi (focus puller) Giorgio Regis
Assistente operatore
(assistant camera operator)
Giulio Spadini c.s.c.
Segr. di edizione (continuity) Silvana Sonego
Truccatore (make-up) Amato Garsini
Parrucchiera (hair dresser) Gabriella Scazelli
Tecnico del suono (sound technician) Bruno Brunacci
Consulenza esterni Raoul Schoultz
Ispett. di produzione (unit manager) Claudio Agostinelli
Segr. di produzione (continuity) Antonio Guadagnino
Segr. amministratore (secr. to accountant) Fernando Caputo
Aiuto montaggio (assistant editor) Paola Tassi
Capo macchinista (key grip) Tarcasio Giamanti
Capo elettricista (gaffer) Nunzio Colucci
Montaggio di (editing by) Tatiana Casini [Morigi]
Musica di (music by) Piero Piccioni
Edizioni musicali (music publishers) “DINO” Roma
Il film e stato girato nel Centro di Produzione della Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica S.p.A.
Negativi positivi effetti ottici
(raw stock, optical effects)
S.P.E.S.
     Dir.      E. Catalucci
Registrazione sonora (sound recording) Westrex
Pellicola (raw stock) Dupont-Kodak
Tutti i diritti riservati Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografia S.p.A.
Ogni riferimento a fatti o persone della vita reale è puramente casuale
Le canzoni (songs) “BALLANDO CON TE”
di Kramer - Pallavicini
“CHI SEI AMORE?”
di Piccioni - Pallavicini
     Sono cantate da (sung by) John Foster
e incise su dischi STYLE
PERSONAGGI ED INTERPRETI
Brigadiere Vincenzo Berruti Alberto Sordi
Dario Marzicano [Mariscano in the English version] Alberto Sordi
Don Giuseppe Alberto Sordi
Conte Tonino Crosara Alberto Sordi
Dolores Monica Vitti
Signora Menenghello Eleonora Rossi Drago
Vittoria, una contadina Silvana Mangano
Il cognato di Vittoria Guido Celano
Il sindaco Alberto Fogliani
Madre di Dolores Liana Del Balzo
Il vescovo Albino Principe
Fantuzzi, a lance-corporal Gianluigi Crescenzi
Il medico Lars Bloch
Contessa Crosara Graziella Polesinanti [uncredited]
Telecronista Lello Bersani [uncredited]
La comparsa Erika Blanc [uncredited]
Telecronista Carlo Mazzarella [uncredited]
A Lance-Corporal Piero Morgia [uncredited]

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