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MORE THAN A MIRACLE
aka
CINDERELLA – ITALIAN STYLE
(C’Era una Volta)
Rating: 
Italy/France. 1967.
Director – Francesco Rosi, Screenplay – Rosi, Giuseppe Patrino Griffi, Tonino Guerra & Raffaele la Capria, Story – Guerra, Producer – Carlo Ponti, Photography – Pasquale de Santis, Music – Piero Piccioni, Art Direction – Piero Poletto. Production Company – C.C. Champion S.p.A/Les Films Concordia.
Cast:
Sophia Loren (Isabella), Omar Sharif (Prince Ramon), Dolores del Rio (Prince’s Mother), Leslie French (Brother Joseph)
Plot: The handsome prince Ramon has his carefree life disrupted when his mother orders him to marry. He flees on his horse but is thrown from it. He comes to the cottage of the fiery peasant girl Isabella who has taken the horse and thinks him a thief when he tries to reclaim it. They argue heatedly. He pretends to fall and break his neck whereupon he is buried alive. When she realizes what has happened she contacts three witches who only make the situation worse. She gets a job in the palace kitchens in order to try and see him. He says he will select his bride by holding a dishwashing competition, but the other princess’s vying for his hand determine to sabotage the contest for her.
Neither of this film’s English-language titles really convey its nature – More Than a Miracle tends to suggest a 1940s-styled supernatural whimsy a la Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941), while the alternate title Cinderella – Italian Style suggests it is a pornographic take on the fairy tale as a number of other films suffixed by Italian Style have been, neither of which comes anywhere near describing it. It is also often mistaken as an adaptation of Cinderella although, short of the vague similarity of featuring a prince and peasant girl, this is not the case. In fact pinpointing any type of label for it is difficult. These days it would probably be lumped with the term Magical Realism that has popped up and is usually used to refer to Latin American works of whimsy involving romance and commonplace magic or fabulism.
But it’s a rather appealing effort. There’s a decidedly bizarre imagination at work in the parade of flying monks, prophecies concerning apple dumplings, marriage partner determination by dishwashing contest and the cackling MacBeth witches the film trots out. Director Rosi films the bare sunburned Italian countryside with great effect. Of course the greatest thing the film has on show is the lovely Sophia Loren who brings an earthy sensuality and naturalism to the part of a peasant girl – there’s a real fire to her performance that quite lights up the film. Omar Sharif has a handsome sexiness opposite her and he barnstorms admirably, but the show is really hers. Sometimes the film lumbers – the dubbing tends to flatten some of the performances out – but it has the sheer sunniness of the open countryside, the voluptuous sensuality of Loren and manages to quite sparkle whenever it gets the chance to let its magic loose.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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