Bread and Chocolate [Pane e Cioccolata] **** (1974, Nino Manfredi, Anna Karina, Paolo Turco) – Classic Movie Review 8604

Director Franco Brusati’s 1974 Bread and Chocolate [Pane e Cioccolata] stars Nino Manfredi as Nino Garofoli, an Italian waiter who quits his home in Sicily for a better life in Switzerland, where, alas, he is arrested for indecent exposure and murder.

Bread and Chocolate [Pane e Cioccolata] is an entertaining, sentimental and touching comedy-drama portrait of a loser, with swipes at the culture clash and the supposedly uncaring Swiss.

Director Brusati writes a good story and holds his film together well, but it is Manfredi’s Charlie Chaplin-style performance that really distinguishes it.

It won the Silver Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival 1974 and the Best Film (Miglior Film) at the David di Donatello Awards 1974 tied with Amarcord (1973). It was a good year for Italian films. The New York Film Critics awarded it Best Foreign Film in 1978, when the film was belatedly released in America.

Also in the cast are Anna Karina, Johnny Dorelli, Paolo Turco, Ugo D’Alessio, Federico Scrobogna, Gianfranco Barra, Girgio Certon and Max Delys.

Bread and Chocolate [Pane e Cioccolata] runs 112 minutes, is made by Verona Cinematografica and released by Cinema International Corporation (CIC) (Italy and UK), is written by Franco Brusati, Jaja Fiastri and Nino Manfredi (dialogue), based on a story by Franco Brusati, is shot in Eastmancolor by Luciano Tovoli, is produced by Maurizio Lodo-Fe and is scored  by Daniele Patrucchi.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8604

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