i'm really quite interested to be doing this discussion today i'm calling it a
review but maybe it's not so much of a review
because i don't really know how i feel about it started in naples
i watched i wanted to watch this for three reasons one the plot sounded
interesting which i'll go over in a second
two clark gable three sophia loren i love clark gable well that's a strong
word i'm quite a fan of clark gable and i really
wanted to see sophia loretta in something as i don't think i have at
least not in a long time and gable and loren completely brilliant
the plot is it's kind of like a film of two halves
but not in the sense that the first half's great the second half isn't or
vice versa it's more like there are two threads to this plot this narrative and
one of them is really good and the other one just feels
so out of place that it really kind of ruins a lot of the experience
so i'd be really interested to know what you think of it started in naples
and also the opening the opening i'll talk about what actually happens in a
minute but the opening to the film just has a
completely different feel to the rest of it
and i don't know if that's because it doesn't necessarily start in naples
i don't i don't know it's difficult to kind of
work out where it went wrong but it's not a bad film
it's not a good film this was released in 1960
uh directed by melville sheavelton charleston
and written by shavelson and jack rose and as i said it stars
gable and sophia loren and the plot from imdb
is pretty pretty reliable it says days before his wedding a philadelphia
lawyer travels to naples in southern italy to settle the estate of his late
brother only to find that he has an italian
nephew who is being cared for by his maternal
aunt a cabaret singer okay so obviously we have
gable traveling there and lorraine as the aunt and
this young boy and to me this young boy is
fantastic he is a brilliant little actor and
i think his interaction with gable's character michael is so
lovely to watch when when gable goes to naples and he goes to italy there are
a lot of cultural differences of course and this young boy kind of introduces
him to some of these and the contrasts to america and it's really fun to watch
and there is this obviously like nephew uncle nephew bond that starts to
grow a little bit and we don't necessarily know what's
going to happen to this little boy and it's really interesting to watch
that boy's narrative however when we have the cabaret scenes
the scenes themselves are fine the performances
the ran great really entertaining to watch
but they feel so disjointed and so out of place with the rest of the film
that it feels like i'm watching two different films
obviously that was put in there to give the film more substance so it's not just
a very one-dimensional plot it does have
more than just uncle meat's nephew nephew talks about
italy but i feel like they made the wrong
decision with making her a cabaret singer maybe they were trying to go for
the comedy maybe they wanted to make it more lively
and musical i don't know what the thinking behind it was
but to me it was a very bad choice and there are so many other avenues that
could have gone down with that character of the aunt
but i'll be honest they made the wrong choice and it doesn't work
but i think it's worth persevering because the rest of the film is lovely
the scenery is really pretty and you know as i said the relationship with
the the uncle and the nephew as that starts to bloom a little bit
is it's very sweet to watch so do i recommend it started in nipples
it's difficult because it's very rare that i don't know whether or not to
recommend a film did i enjoy watching this seventy
percent of it would i watch it again no
so i'd say if you like the sound of it watch it but if you're just looking for
a film recommendation then there are so many other films
that i could recommend certainly filmed with clark gable
so i'd say watch it if you think you will like it
but if you're on the fence then definitely give it a miss
and if you have seen it please let me know what you think have you actually
been able to make up your mind about it started in naples
you