By RM
sent: thursday, september 25, 2025 at 04:48:30 p.m. edt
subject: POST GONE MISSING
This must be a record-I sent this THREE times via the usual route, and it never appeared! I have no idea how the blog system works-do posted messages get transmitted by carrier pigeon? I wouldn't normally bother, but I wanted to memorialize Claudia Cardinale and I thought it was a worthwhile post-
Yes, one of the great beauties-and her movies were a lot more entertaining than Sophia's! We were speaking about how Rock Hudson somehow seemed simpatico with his leading ladies-he was teamed with her in a heist movie called A Fine Pair (the title is a double-entendre), and there's a scene where they try to rob a vault which, if I'm recalling it correctly, is heat-sensitive. The only thing there to cool it down and keep the alarm from going off is champagne, and they end up giddily spraying the champagne all over each other, of course with her shirt getting soaked as they make out... It's quite an erotic scene for its day.
For Once upon a Time in the West, Leone supposedly had the music score playing on the set for the scene where she learns that the man she was supposed to marry was killed, along with his whole family. Talk about making acting easy-everybody there was probably crying!
That's about how I feel right now.
R.I.P.-
-RM
I'm very sorry, RM. This lovely little essay got buried again, in the deluge of my e-mails.
As for Cardinale, she was one of a series of voluptuous, stunning, talented Italian leading ladies after the war, all of which are now unfortunately gone, save for Loren: Silvana Mangano, Lollobrigida, Loren, and Cardinale. (Anna Magnani had eveything but the beautiful part.)
2 comments:
She was fine in Visconti's "The Leopard" as Alain Delon's bride and Burt Lancaster's niece-in-law, although the part admittedly wasn't very demanding.
Thanks for the post- just to clarify, I didn't say Claudia was "greater" than Sophia, just that her movies were more interesting! Of course, Sophia always had a kind of haughty quality about her which maybe made her seem less likable than C.C.- but you gotta love 'em both, we'll never see their like again!
-RM
PS- YIKES, I know you're just kidding, but DON'T call me a "critic"- you KNOW what I think of "critics"! "Critics" tell people what they're supposed to think- I'm just venturing an opinion, and hopefully some insight!
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