BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

jagauze Sophia Loren gets a 10/10: at 26 she's at her playful and provocative peak. Clark Gable? All the hair dye in the world can't hide the fact that he's more than twice Ms. Loren's age. Gable's 1930s silver screen smile notwithstanding, the biggest joke in this admittedly cute comedy is the premise that a gorgeous, freewheelin' Italian beauty might fall for a stilted 59 year old senior citizen. Try making that movie today and audiences would write it off as dirty-old-man creepy. (Not nearly a "Lolita"; more a "Gigi".)But still... Sophia Loren! Wow! She alone gets the film part marks.

irishm This will be hard for many film lovers to believe, but I never liked Clark Gable. I've seen some of his classics like "Gone With the Wind" and "It Happened One Night", and I was always turned off by the narcissistic, arrogant jerk he always seemed to play. I only wanted to see this film because I was about to take a trip to Naples and I was hoping for some nice scenery. I was also hoping Gable wouldn't ruin it for me completely.Jackpot! The combination of the location filming, interesting premise, clever writing, humor, solid supporting performances by Marietto and Vittorio De Sica, and Gable's highly entertaining portrayal of a short-tempered curmudgeon rather than his usual dashing know-it-all really made this film for me. I don't know how many times I've watched it. I even bought the DVD, and I buy very few due to a serious lack of storage space, because I knew I would want to share it.During the time I spent in Naples I was constantly reminded of things in the movie: fireworks, schedules that are wrong but 'everyone knows it', endless varieties of coffee… this movie really "gets" Naples, and surprisingly some things about it haven't changed all that much in fifty years.And now that I'm finally feeling well-disposed towards Mr. Gable, maybe I'll have to give some of his other work a second try.

MartinHafer In many, many ways, this film appears to have later been made as AVANTI (with Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills). The plots have just too many similarities to be a coincidence. While not exactly a remake, this later film seems like a slight reworking of the plot--with a little bit of gratuitous sex and nudity added to boot.The film begins with Clark Gable going to Italy to take care of arrangements after his brother's accidental death. This no-good brother had apparently been living a double life--with a wife back in the States AND one in Italy! Gable is surprised to not only discover this, but that there is an 8 year-old boy who is apparently his nephew! He's also surprised that the boy's Italian Aunt (Sophia Loren) isn't particularly interested in establishing a relationship with Gable or having the boy go to live in the States. Considering that the boy is a ragamuffin living in a rather bohemian existence, this might just be in the kid's best interest--at least that is what Gable assumes. Over time, the blustering Gable comes under the spell of the island of Capri and Loren's ample charms.Oddly, however, the film makers thought that pairing Gable and Loren romantically made sense and that the public would buy it--and they didn't. The age difference was just too great. Additionally, the styles and personalities of the two were just too different to make such a pairing believable--though at least it worked better than Loren and John Wayne (LEGEND OF THE LOST) and a bit better than Loren and Alan Ladd (BOY ON A DOLPHIN). Why film makers insisted on pairing this sexy starlet with significantly older established American actors is beyond me.So, while the film isn't exactly believable, is it worth watching? After all, although miscast, the film could still be enjoyable. And, for the most part it was, though including a "cute and precocious" kid was, at times, a bit too much of a cliché. He was too cute and way too precocious to be realistic--walking, talking and acting like a 30 year-old man stuck in a kid's body--sort of like Tatum O'Neal in PAPER MOON. Also, some might find its treatment of Italians as a bit patronizing--as they all seem rather lazy and fun-loving--not like real people. As for the look of the film, it was terrific--filmed in exquisite color that really made this Italian island look its best. Overall, it's an enjoyable and nice looking piece of fluff--not bad, just not as good as it could have been.By the way, supporting actor Vittorio De Sica was also a very accomplished director. He acted in quite a few films and was quite good, but as a director he was one of the best, with such wonderful films as UMBERTO D, MIRACLE IN MILAN and THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US to his credits--among others.

raylb50 This film could have been so good, but wasn't. Despite two great stars in Gable & Loren it just did not work. The obvious lack of chemistry between Gable & Loren, which was glaringly obvious to everyone in every scene they did, was a stumbling block to the light -hearted atmosphere the film was attempting to portray. Plus, Gable was miscast, as by now he was 61 yrs old to Loren's 26, & it showed. The film lurches along, but the wonderful Isle of Capri scenery shots did help. The comedy falls quite flat most of the time, a pity, it could all have been so much better. Pity too, this was to be Gable's penultimate film, a great film actor, who had a lot more years of acting in him yet.