It Started in Naples (1960)

I wonder if there really is the palace reale in Capri at Sofia's house in the movie. Thanks

I've always been sentimental over this film. My grandmother took me up to the big city on November 16, 1960 -- when I was just 11 -- to see it on Rochester, New York's biggest movie screen. Quite a different setting than our usual small hometown theater. When we left the theater they were hawking newspapers with the headline that Clark Gable had just died of a heart attack. The theater was either the old RKO Palace Theater or the old Lowe's Rochester Theater (both demolished a few years later). I saw the movie a second time a few days later...on the day Gable was buried.And so, I remember Clark Gable for this film and, of course, for "Gone With The Wind". Here he is just perfect as the "Americano" who has come to settle his brother's estate, only to find his brother had a second wife and a son.But this is also the film where -- at age 11 -- I simply fell in love with Sophia Loren. This film and the earlier "Houseboat" (with Cary Grant...which I only later discovered on television...same director) convinced me that Loren was the most beautiful woman in the world (with a little competition from Lana Turner). And now, over 50 years later, I still find those two to be my ideal impression of true beauty. Here, Loren is at her most playful, and a perfect match for the over-serious character Gable plays.One of the things that makes this movie so charming is that both Gable and Loren appear to be actually enjoying themselves in making the film. Gable shows humor we didn't get to often see him demonstrate, particularly later in his career. And, Loren is so entertaining, particularly in her night club dance number.The story is a decent one (although the plot is pretty transparent. You know that in the end the tired American is going to fall in love with Loren and Capri...and stay there with his new family. But on most vacations you know where you are going, the fun is in getting there...and this movie -- filmed on location -- is darned fun in the journey.In addition to the obvious on-screen chemistry between Clark Gable and Sophia Loren, the supporting cast is quite good. Of particular note is the young boy -- Marietto, who plays Nando; what a character! And Vittorio De Sica is very entertaining as Loren's lawyer.This is a delightful light comedy and romance which in beautifully filmed. I liked Gable's performance here more than any since GWTW, and it's one of my favorite performances by Loren.Highly recommended!

"It Started in Naples" reminds me very much of the major hit Clark Gable had a quarter century before, "It Happened One Night." Both were movies with screwball moments. If "It Started in Naples" was meant at all to be a remake, it is more of a real reworking, and a most effective one at that.As good as Claudette Colbert was as an actress, Sophia Loren sizzles in this film. She is both sexy and funny. Clark Gable may have seemed quite old by then; his heavy smoking aged him, and no doubt caused his fatal heart attack later in 1960. But he handles the role with such ease! And after all, a younger woman going with an older man is not so unusual.The entire cast does a great job. One thing to watch for: When Gable goes into the town square looking for Lucia, you'll see everybody and anybody there, including a long-haired, bearded man. You'd have never seen that in 1934! Seeing that shows that "It Started in Naples" was from the Sixties! This is one fun film! And it makes you wonder what might have been had Clark Gable lived through the 1960s

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.