CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

irishm This will be hard for many film lovers to believe, but I never liked Clark Gable. I've seen some of his classics like "Gone With the Wind" and "It Happened One Night", and I was always turned off by the narcissistic, arrogant jerk he always seemed to play. I only wanted to see this film because I was about to take a trip to Naples and I was hoping for some nice scenery. I was also hoping Gable wouldn't ruin it for me completely.Jackpot! The combination of the location filming, interesting premise, clever writing, humor, solid supporting performances by Marietto and Vittorio De Sica, and Gable's highly entertaining portrayal of a short-tempered curmudgeon rather than his usual dashing know-it-all really made this film for me. I don't know how many times I've watched it. I even bought the DVD, and I buy very few due to a serious lack of storage space, because I knew I would want to share it.During the time I spent in Naples I was constantly reminded of things in the movie: fireworks, schedules that are wrong but 'everyone knows it', endless varieties of coffee… this movie really "gets" Naples, and surprisingly some things about it haven't changed all that much in fifty years.And now that I'm finally feeling well-disposed towards Mr. Gable, maybe I'll have to give some of his other work a second try.

jumbopasatebos This movie had everything on paper, a great American actor(Gable), beautiful locations and the ever-adorable Sophia Lauren. But the script is so poor and idiotic that totally ruins everything...So, Gable, your typical Yankee, arives at Naples after his brother's death.He finds out that his brother had a secret second marriage and a child who currently lives with his Aunt (Lauren). Basically what the director wanted was to demonstrate the difference of go-like-it Italians and the more sober, cold, calculating Americans, a premise so stale and stereotypical that would need a special amount of skill to be formed into something watchable. And sadly this was not the case. Actually this movie is pretty brave, in a peculiar way. It has the audacity to denounce the whole neo-realistic Italian cinema where all these poor people struggle through life and it's miseries. Alas, what offers instead is a stereotypical view where poverty is equal to a happy ignorance. All the Italian characters are rude, messy and quarrel but always in a happy and delightfull way... They all try to speak "funny" English and although they are illiterate they manage it pretty good... They are not poor because of the war's damages , they are poor because they like it and they cannot do much better...Even so, if this movie had any kind of charm I could still accept it as your shallow typical romance comedy but, here, every joke literally back-fires at the character's faces. Take for example Nando, the little boy. He is illiterate, smokes and distributes Cabaret leaflets but that's OK because he is Italian and does not need an education. He lives with a prostitute in a dump but he's good and likes fireworks so that's OK... The American again loves hamburgers, tries to teach his nephew baseball etc.His fiancée dumbs him,only because she hears music from the telephone and does not know that in Italy it is OK to play loud music all day and all night...He tries to enlist Nando in an American school that will give him proper education, because all Italian schools must be really bad (they stretch the American school joke so far that you can't possibly imagine...) The acting is also really terrible. Gable stumbles across the film like a joke of his old self,and Lauren tries to be decent but has so little to work with and cannot save herself..This movie in all aspects is a total waste...

dcurrie623 I've just seen this on a beautiful DVD and I want to echo the positive comments. While not the funniest movie ever made it is amusing and a good family-type picture---assuming that families watch this type of picture these days.What makes it happen for me is seeing Clark Gable and Sophia Loren together on screen with a beautiful background full of Capri Italy, 1960. The story is pretty basic but {like most good movies}provides a framework, plot situations and dialog- a lot of it in Italian, but still understandable- to keep the action moving and show off the Star Power on screen.There is great chemistry between Loren and Gable as well as co-star Vittorio De Sica and the young kid who plays the boy Nando - a star turn at age 10. Charming,amusing with eye-filling scenery and three legendary cinema personalities. Diverting and entertaining.

theowinthrop This is the penultimate film of the career of Clark Gable, and his last comedy. He is a Philadelphia lawyer named Michael Hamilton, who is about to marry a suitable middle aged woman at home (we never see her), and must delay the marriage while he goes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged brother. He is unaware of the details, but his brother was never a hard headed, hard working type - and he had fled to Italy, where he seems to have drowned in an accident. Mike discovers his brother was out fishing with his wife when a sudden squall upset the boat and drowned them. He also discovers his brother lived up to his reputation as a ne'er-do-well by specializing in making great fireworks, and left a little boy named Nando (Marietto). But Nando's mother had a sister named Lucia (Sophia Loren) who appears at a local Capri nightclub. Mike and Lucia find themselves at odds about Nando's present and future lifestyle: Mike wants the boy brought up in America, while Lucia wants him in a happier, earthier life in Italy. Soon Nando, Lucia, Mike, and Mike's lawyer Vitale (Vittorio De Sica) manage to bring the blood uncle and blood aunt into a closer and closer relationship. Eventually they fall in love.Gable's performance was similar to a middle class "Ugly American" as in the contemporary novel and the movie with Marlon Brando. Mike is a successful lawyer, and he wants his brother's son to get the breaks he needs in good schools and with a normal home. He cannot believe that the little fellow is not degenerating, but is actually in a loving household with Lucia. In the first third of the film Gable makes a lot of snide comments about the easy take it life style he sees around him in Italy. It is only gradually that he realizes that the Italians can be serious when they want, and that there is nothing wrong (as he eventually admits) to being an elderly carriage driver singing "So Long to Sorrento" for his fares' amusement. He also can see that his first choice for marriage is even stuffier than he is, or that there were some really unattractive aspects in his fellow American tourists (witness that final scene in the railway car he is leaving Naples in).Lucia is also an interesting character - she mistrusts Americans (as her song "Americano" spoofs their foibles), but her own ambitions for success mirror the type of work ethic that is part of the American persona. She also is a realist - she insists that Nando speak English at home, rather than Italian. The reason (aside from the obvious screenplay reason of allowing the audience to understand the conversation) is that English is the international tongue of the modern age. If Nando is to succeed, he has to speak English well. Her affection for her nephew is deep - to the point that she is willing to even consider losing him for his own good.Nando is trying to find a balance between his aunt and uncle. He loves the aunt, and gets to really like Mike, but he can't understand why Mike can't only leave him with Lucia, and then occasionally visit. When Mike and Lucia become an item (or appear to be one), well that's fine too - they can take up where his parents left off. But he is capable of knowing if something is going wrong. When Mike says he wants to talk to him "man to man" Nando's face drops, and he says he never likes it when he hears "man to man".Vitale is an interesting supporting character. As the lawyer for Mike's brother he is obliged to tell him what the deceased's estate was (mostly fireworks and Nando). He begins processing Mike's legal moves to get custody of Nando away from Lucia. Lucia confronts Vitale, calling him a traitor to Italy for helping an American steal her nephew, and calling him a pig (as his looks at the sumptuous Lucia/Sophia Loren reveal). His helpless reply is that a man can be both a lawyer and a pig. In the end, in the courtroom, he is so twisted by his loyalties that he cannot give Mike a coherent (or even fair) defense. One can understand his dilemma.It is a sweet comedy, that holds up very well. It makes one wonder if Gable would have continued in roles like this one had he not died so soon after THE MISFITS.