Search
‘Moscou’ is a densely populated working class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. Matty, mother of three, bumps her car into a truck on the parking lot of a supermarket. Johnny climbs down from the cabin. He is infuriated by the dent in his front bumper and yells at Matty. Although impressed by the accident, Matty fights back with sharp words. Their discussion turns into a row, and the police have to intervene. Matty goes home, the trunk of her car dancing up and down. Back in her apartment, Matty takes a hot bath to recover from the afternoon’s emotionswhen the phone rings. It’s Johnny, apologizing for his behaviour on the parking lot. Matty tells him to stay out of her life. A dramatic comedy begins about a woman whose soul is full of dents and bruises.
Wild Is the Wind represents a (perhaps deliberate) reversal of the situation in The Rose Tattoo (1955). Whereas in Tattoo, Anna Magnani played a widow who could never find a man to measure up to her late husband, in Wind her character, Giola, marries widowed rancher Gino (Anthony Quinn), who is haunted by the memory of his first spouse. The situation is dicier in Wind, since Italian immigrant Gino’s deceased wife was Giola’s sister. Eventually tiring of her husband’s mood swings, Giola turns to his son, Bene (Anthony Franciosa), for emotional and sexual gratification. A Hollywood approximation of the Italian neorealist school of filmmaking, Wild Is the Wind was based on Furia, a story by Vittorio Nino Novarese. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
When Henry fails yet again to hand in his homework for the umpteenth time, he has no idea that this will set off a chain of events which will see him forming an unlikely alliance with Moody Margaret, the infuriating girl next door, and his irritating little brother Perfect Peter, outwitting corrupt School Inspectors and toppling an evil Headmaster, winning a talent contest and facing his ultimate nemesis with no way out – all because he is trying to save the very school which he has always professed to hate!