The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

blog.laemmle.com

The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

  • All
  • Theater Buzz
    • Claremont 5
    • Glendale
    • Newhall
    • NoHo 7
    • Royal
    • Santa Monica
    • Town Center 5
  • Q&A’s
  • Locations & Showtimes
    • Claremont
    • Glendale
    • NewHall
    • North Hollywood
    • Royal (West LA)
    • Santa Monica
    • Town Center (Encino)
  • Film Series
    • Anniversary Classics
    • Culture Vulture
    • Worldwide Wednesdays
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube

“A pity party that has no business being so much fun,” UNA VITA DIFFICLE opens in the U.S. after a 62 year wait.

March 8, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

The long-awaited U.S. premiere of Dino Risi’s Una Vita Difficile, starring one of the most beloved of all Italian actors, Alberto Sordi (Mafioso, Il Boom, Fellini’s The White Sheik and I Vitelloni, etc.), was greeted with big crowds and admiring reviews when Rialto Pictures opened its restoration in New York last month. Laemmle Theatres opens the film about a resistance fighter-turned-journalist and his wife (Lea Massari) navigating life in post-war Italy on Friday, March 17 at the Royal and Town Center and March 24 at the Monica Film Center and Laemmle Glendale.

The New York Times’ critic A.O. Scott hailed it as “a stellar specimen of commedia all’italiana.” In his review for Air Mail, Michael Sragow proclaimed, “Alberto Sordi triumphs at jet-black comedy…(he’s) Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one.”

In Italy, Una Vita Difficile has long been cherished as a highlight of the 1950s and 60s golden age of Italian comedy, which also gave the world Big Deal on Madonna Street, Divorce Italian Style, Mafioso, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and Risi’s own Il Sorpasso (made the year after Una Vita Difficile). While these and others were major arthouse hits in the U.S., Una Vita Difficile was inexplicably never released here…until now.

 

“A stellar specimen of commedia all’Italiana by a true maestro of the form. Pulsate[s] with the breathlessness and disorientation of a country simultaneously grappling with the past and speeding toward a confusing future…Belongs in the company of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Risi’s Il Sorpasso. It also stands by itself as an exuberant bad time, a pity party that has no business being so much fun.” — A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“It sounds absurd to even contemplate: an unreleased 1961 epic romance starring the legendary Alberto Sordi that tackles the decades after WWII — a mixture of sentiment and grand historic sweep that the Italians always did so well — that’s somehow just getting a U.S. release.” — Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

“Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama, from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy…Alberto Sordi triumphs at jet-black comedy when the antihero fails as an idealist, a husband, even as a sell-out. The closest America has come to Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one.” — Michael Sragow, Air Mail

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Filed Under: Featured Films, Featured Post, Films, Glendale, News, Repertory Cinema, Royal, Santa Monica, Theater Buzz, Town Center 5

1 Comment
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Sharon Gibbs
Sharon Gibbs
2 years ago

Interested in real raw espionage, Churchill, Monty, Ungentlemanly Warfare, John le Carré, Kim Philby, SAS Rogue Heroes, 22 SAS Regiment (Malaya) and Philby’s interest therein. Do read the epic spy novel, Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription in TheBurlingtonFiles series. He was one of Pemberton’s People in MI6 (see the brief News Article dated 31 October 2022 in TheBurlingtonFiles website). The thriller is the stuff memorable films are made of, raw, realistic yet punchy, pacy and provocative; a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.

It’s a fact based book which follows the real life of a real spy, Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington who worked for British Intelligence, the CIA et al. It’s like nothing we have ever come across before. We wonder what The Burlington Files would have been like if David Cornwell had collaborated with Bill Fairclough. They did consider it and even though they didn’t collaborate, Beyond Enkription is still described as ”up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”.

Do take a look at TheBurlingtonFiles website. It is like a living espionage museum and as breathtaking as a compelling thriller. As for Beyond Enkription. it’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti. See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php for starters.

0

Search

Featured Posts

Join us July 24 for the sixth annual Art House Theater Day at the Monicas, Glendale, NoHo and Claremont.

THE LIFE OF CHUCK is an art house summer sleeper. Don’t skip this one.

Instagram

Laemmle Theatres is pleased to celebrate the sixth Laemmle Theatres is pleased to celebrate the sixth annual Art House Theater Day this July 24 by screening four fabulous films curated by this year’s ambassadors, filmmakers Sean Baker and Samantha Quan.

⭐ Sean Baker’s "Tangerine (2015)" at the @laemmlenoHo
⭐ Lily Tomlin’s "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991)" at the @laemmlemonicafilmcenter
⭐ Céline Sciamma’s "Tomboy (2011)" at the @laemmleglendale
⭐ Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart (2006) at the @laemmleclaremont

Taken together, the four beautifully represent the breadth, depth, humor, profundity and diversity that art house moviegoers seek out and embrace.

📣 The Tangerine screening will include exclusive content with ambassadors Sean Baker and Samantha Quan. The Search for Signs screening will feature a special audience salute from star Lily Tomlin.
part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ l part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ laem.ly/3RplztZ
#ThePolishWomen
Escaping famine in Poland, Rebeca (Valentina Herszage), together with her son Joseph, arrives in Brazil to meet her husband, who immigrated first hoping for a better life for the three of them. However, she finds a completely different reality in Rio de Janeiro.
Part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ l Part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ laem.ly/3RpbZY5
#TheSurvivalOfKindness
Battling privilege and pestilence while not knowing if she's alive or dead, Black Woman finds skeletons and has her boots stolen. "First-time actress Mwajemi Hussein is riveting as an escapee trekking across a plague-ravaged wilderness in a magnificently parched, wordless parable." ~ Variety
⭐ Don't miss your chance to experience the mocku ⭐ Don't miss your chance to experience the mockumentary masterpiece THIS IS SPINAL TAP on the Laemmle big screen! Remixed, remastered, and re-releasing! it's going to be 11/10!

📅 THIS WEEKEND ONLY!
🍿Elevated food and drink options that go beyond the screen!
🎟️TICKETS: laem.ly/4khU16n

@spinaltap #spinaltap @bleeckerstfilms @FathomEntertainment #ThisIsSpinalTap
Follow on Instagram

Laemmle Theatres

Laemmle Theatres
Tickets:  | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | Featuring The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Monica Film Center), Tangerine (NoHo), Tomboy (Glendale) and Whispers of the Heart (Claremont

Tickets: 

RELEASE DATE: 

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/kerouacs-road-beat-nation | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | KEROUAC’S ROAD: THE BEAT OF A NATION explores how the legacy of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel On the Road reflects in today’s America. The film interweaves stories of modern-day “on-the-roaders” who share connections to Kerouac’s life, alongside those influenced by him or knew and loved him.

Featured participants include Josh Brolin, W. Kamau Bell, Natalie Merchant, Matt Dillon, David Amram and Joyce Johnson. On the Road remains as relevant today as it was in the 1950s, but both the book and Kerouac himself have never been explored in this way before.

The film reveals a rarely seen

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/kerouacs-road-beat-nation

RELEASE DATE: 8/1/2025
Director: Ebs Burnough
Cast: Michael Imperioli (voice), David Amran (voice), W. Kamau Bell (voice), Josh Brolin (voice)

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/desperately-seeking-susan | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | New Jersey housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) spices up her boring life by reading personal ads, especially a series of them being placed by a mysterious denizen of New York City named Susan (Madonna). When one of Susan's ads proposes a rendezvous with her suitor (Robert Joy) at Battery Park, Roberta secretly tags along. But when her voyeuristic jape ends in permanent memory loss and a new jacket, Roberta begins to gather a lot of unwanted attention from some unsavory characters.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/desperately-seeking-susan

RELEASE DATE: 7/30/2025
Director: Susan Seidelman
Cast: Rosanna Arquette, Aidan Quinn, Madonna, Robert Joy

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Load More... Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • Greg Laemmle on DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT.
  • Join us July 24 for the sixth annual Art House Theater Day at the Monicas, Glendale, NoHo and Claremont.
  • Laemmle Sunset 5 general manager Roger Christensen on the latest Inside the Arthouse.
  • THE LIFE OF CHUCK is an art house summer sleeper. Don’t skip this one.
  • Filmmaker Embeth Davidtz & Executive Producer Trevor Noah in Person for DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT July 10.
  • “A gorgeous drama with an open, aching heart,” FAMILIAR TOUCH opens Friday at the Royal, Town Center, and Glendale.

Archive

wpDiscuz