Hollywood on the Tiber – Welles at Cinecitta

[Harvey Chartrand]

Hollywood on the Tiber (from Variety, Sept. 24/09)

(Documentary -- Italy) A Cinecitta Luce, Studio Universal presentation and production. (International sales: Cinecitta Luce, Rome.) Produced by Luciano Sovena, Luca Federico Cadura. Directed, written by Marco Spagnoli.

With: Louis Armstrong, Lauren Bacall, Brigitte Bardot, Ingrid Bergman, Ernest Borgnine, Claudia Cardinale, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Collins, Sean Connery, Tony Curtis, Salvador Dali, Bette Davis, Dino De Laurentiis, Vittorio De Sica, Walt Disney, Ella Fitzgerald, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Alberto Sordi, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Alida Valli, Monica Vitti, Orson Welles.
Narrator: Daniela Cavallini.

By BOYD VAN HOEIJ
Italo docu "Hollywood on the Tiber," by journo-turned-helmer Marco Spagnoli, plays more like a DVD special feature than a proper documentary. Nominally looking at the influx of filmmaking Yanks in the Italian capital in the '50s and '60s, the, pic is largely reduced to showing pretty pictures of familiar faces set to a loud, eclectic soundtrack, with the v.o. narration, in headache-inducing run-on sentences, offering little guidance. Pic's best bet is as film-channel filler.