Good Morning Babylon [Good Morning Babilonia] **** (1987, Vincent Spano, Joaquim de Almeida, Greta Scacchi, Charles Dance) – Classic Movie Review 9744

Charles Dance steals the 1987 show Good Morning Babylon as movie pioneer director D W Griffith in a charming homage to silent film-making from Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani, the Italian heavyweight directors responsible for the 1977 Padre Padrone.

The Taviani Brothers also wrote this story and screenplay about two other Italian brothers, Nicola and Andrea (Vincent Spano and Joaquim de Almeida), who go off to America to make their fortune, manage to find employment in the Italian immigrant neighbourhood of San Francisco, and work as set designers on Griffith’s 1916 epic Intolerance.

Greta Scacchi and Desiree Becker [Désirée Nosbusch] play the film extras the brothers fall in love with and marry. Griffith is looking for Italian-born set designers, so the Tuscan artisan brothers find themselves working on the film’s elaborate Babylonian period set pieces,

A painstaking labour of love, Good Morning Babylon is beautifully achieved, looks glorious and is an enormous pleasure to watch for anyone who loves the movies.

Happily, it was a critical and financial hit in Italy, winning Lina Nerli Taviani an Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Nastro d’Argento (Silver Ribbon) for Best Costume Design.

Also in the cast are Omero Antonutti, Bérangère Bonvoisin, David Brandon, Brian Freilino, Margarita Lozano, Andrea Prodan and Massimo Venturiello.

It is based on an idea by Lloyd Fonvielle, and the screenplay is in collaboration with Tonino Guerra.

RIP Vittorio Taviani, who died on 15 April 2018, aged 88.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9744

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