Adua and Her Friends

Adua e le compagne

Italy

1960

106 Min

Black and White

1.66:1

Italian

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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SCR Antonio Pietrangeli, Ruggero Maccari, Tullio Pinelli, Ettore Scola

CAST Simone Signoret, Sandra Milo, Emmanuelle Riva, Gina Rovere, Marcello Mastroianni, Claudio Gora, Valeria Fabrizi

A rare masterpiece and a wonderful example of Italian Cinema starring two European film icons, Simone Signoret and Marcello Mastroianni, Adua and Her Friends tells the story of four prostitutes forced to fend for themselves when a new law closes the bordellos of Rome. They pool their savings to open a trattoria, but find they cannot get a license. A prominent fixer with connections obtains the license for them, on the condition that they conduct their old business upstairs and pay him an exorbitant monthly fee. The works of Pietrangeli, one of the most talented members of the Italian neo-realism movement and capable of delivering gems such as Adua and her Friends and The Visitor definitely deserves to be revisited and to be exposed to a larger international audience. –Raro Video

Director

Antonio Pietrangeli

Antonio Pietrangeli (born January 19, 1919 in Rome, Gaeta, died July 12, 1968) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Pietrangeli was a major practitioner of the Commedia all’italiana genre.

He started writing film reviews for famous Italian cinema magazines such as Bianco e nero and Cinema. As a screenwriter, Pietrangeli’s work included Ossessione directed by Visconti, Fabiola by Blasetti, Europa ’51 by Rossellini, and La lupa by Lattuada.

His directing debut was Il sole negli occhi (1953). Career highlights include Io la conoscevo bene (1965) and Adua e le compagne (1960).

He died in a car accident in 1969 while working on Come, quando, perché, which was completed by Valerio Zurlini. —Wikipedia