Having seen it I have to say that those who were disappointed in the result of the marriage of George Clooney and Abruzzo had every right to their opinion.

Back in May I watched and rated 5 movies filmed in Abruzzo and after that arduous task I placed Pane e Tulipani on top of the list and declared it the best of the bunch. You can read the details here: Things I’ll do for a Blog Post.

The American has not stolen its crown!

I used a simple and totally subjective method of judging the movies. After watching them I asked myself 5 questions:

1. Abruzzo: Do you see much of the Abruzzo region?
2. Re-run: Would I watch the movie again?
3. Fun: Well, was it fun?
4. Acting: Was there any to be seen?
5. Plot: Did it make any sense at all?

After watching The American I’d give following results out of 5

1. Abruzzo: Do you see much of the Abruzzo region?

   I’m going to be generous here. I’m not sure if a movie could show more scenery and not be a documentary about the region. But I was very disappointed by the Abruzzese characters it portrayed.How come there was no queue in the post office? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before in Abruzzo!

   Score: 4/5 (I’m being generous)

2. Re-run: Would I watch the movie again?

   I really can’t see myself watching it again. I’d love to show it to friends who haven’t seen Abruzzo but I think they’d fall asleep well before it was over.I think I’ll stick to making them look at my photos and drinking Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

   Score: 1/5

3. Fun: Well, was it fun?

   I laughed when the priest first interrogated the George Clooney character. I remembered having a similar experience when I tried to buy a box of matches in a tobacconist. No detail was so small that it didn’t interest my interrogator.I liked the opening scene, and many of the shots of Abruzzo’s wonderful landscapes and towns with narrow streets – so to be fair, it wasn’t a disaster. But I don’t think anyone who didn’t feel as I do about Abruzzo would call that fun. (Trying to be objective here.)

   Score: 2/5

4. Acting: Was there any to be seen?

   Apart from the characters of the assassin and the prostitute I felt the rest of the acting was poor. In a story that has four key roles (the assassin, the prostitute, the priest and the client) the movie is on a slippery slope if two of these roles are not credible.Score: 2/5

5. Plot: Did it make any sense at all?

   Yes the plot made sense, but it’s an old story and if you’re going to tell it again you’d better do it well.Score: 2/5

Add up the total and you get 11 out of a possible 25, placing it below Pane e Tulipani and the Trinity movies.

But let’s give it some credit, it beats Ladyhawke and The Name of the Rose.

So based on this totally personal and not very scientific approach here is my current Abruzzo movie pecking order:

Looking at IMDB the move is rated at 6.6 out of 10, so I guess others found it more enjoyable than I did.

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An Assassin, A Prostitute and Abruzzo Can’t Save This Movie

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Among the movies listed were the following:

• The Name Of The Rose
• Ladyhawke
• My Name Is Trinity
• Trinity Is Still My Name
• Pane e Tulipani

Apart from these I mentioned The American (2010) starring George Clooney which is still to be released and Fontamara (1977).

Also a reader kindly commented and recommended The Fox and The Child (2007).

So with no thought to my own safety I set about watching as many of these movies as I good get my hands on. Since The American isn’t released yet, and I couldn’t find a copy of Fontamara that left six movies to watch.

I’d seen The Name Of The Rose and Ladyhawke (when I was a kid) and liked them both (or so I thought). When I wrote the previous post I thought I’d seen My Name Is Trinity and Trinity Is Still My Name but it turned out I hadn’t. I was confusing them with other westerns. How I could possibly have confused Trinity (Terence Hill) and Bambino (Bud Spencer) with any other characters or actors I’ll never know.

Anyway over a few weeks I watched these movies and I now have a pecking order of which ones I liked best and which, in my opinion, were the turkeys.

Before I go there this is the current IMDB rating (out of 10) for these movies:

• The Name Of The Rose: 7.8
• Ladyhawke: 6.7
• My Name Is Trinity: 7.2
• Trinity Is Still My Name: 7.0
• Pane e Tulipani: 7.3

They all get relatively high user ratings (certainly above average) with Ladyhawke holding up the rear and The Name Of The Rose winning out.

So I bought the popcorn, turned on the TV and kicked off my atempt at creating an Abruzzo related movies seen by me league table. I assessed them out of 5 on these criteria:

Abruzzo: Do you see much of the Abruzzo region?

Re-run: Would I watch the movie again?

Fun: Well, was it fun?

Acting: Was there any to be seen?

Plot: Did it make any sense at all?

Based on this totally personal and not very scientific approach here are the results:

What surprises me is how accurately it reflects which movie I liked the most and which I was most disappointed with.

The clear winner was Pane e Tulipani even though it really didn’t showcase much of Abruzzo. The biggest disappointment was The Name Of The Rose. I really cannot see why I liked it the first time I saw it. I wondered if I’d seen it on a date and my judgement was clouded but I don’t think that was the case.

The two Trinity movies are in joint 2nd position mainly because they don’t take themselves seriously, they give a good feel for Campo Imperatore and they’re just good fun.

I hope to have a copy of The Fox and The Child in the next few weeks and I’ll take a look at it then. Sammy described it as “sad but beautiful” in her comment back in February so I’ll have the Kleenex at the ready.

Based on the table above The American doesn’t have to do too much to top the Abruzzo related movies seen by me league table. It just has to showcase Abruzzo, have a plot, perhaps not take itself too seriously and with a bit of luck that Clooney fellow will act a little.

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Things I’ll do for a Blog Post!

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Later I found out that these movies had an Abruzzo connection:

• The Name Of The Rose
• Ladyhawke
• My Name Is Trinity
• Trinity Is Still My Name

I’d seen these movies years ago at a time when I’d never heard of Abruzzo. I think The Name Of The Rose is by far the best of them, but I enjoyed them all.

Curious, I recently did an IMDB search it appears there are 86 entries for works filmed in Abruzzo, here they all are. Although most are in Italian there are quite a few in English too.

When I saw the list I spotted a few surprises. I remember watching Krull and La Strada and sure enough the fact that some of the scenes I saw were filmed in L’Aquila (Campo Imperatore, Ovindoli, Rocca di Mezzo) would have had no impact on me at the time.

But things are different now. Since I’ve had a chance to spend time in Abruzzo I keep an eye out for the region. I don’t live there, I just wish I did. I travel there as often as possible, which is never enough.

So I think I’m going to have to go back and look at some of these films again, and although they may not be regarded as classics, except perhaps The Name Of The Rose, I’m going to have fun looking out for Abruzzo as I watch.

Looking through the IMDB list I learned a few more nuggets of information:

• There is a movie of the novel Fontemara by Ignazio Silone (I didn’t know that.)
• The American, filmed in Castel del Monte and Sulmona will be released this year (and it stars somebody called George Clooney) (OK, I knew that.)
• Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips) an Italian film I’ve wanted to see and have read good things about, has scenes filmed in Pescara (A nice surprise.)

So while I’m waiting for my next trip to Abruzzo (not too long now, nearly there, nearly there) I can crank up the DVD player see if I can spot familiar scenes while watching Sean Connery and Christian Slater in The Name Of The Rose, Anthony Quinn in La Strada, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick in Ladyhawke, a whole list of actors I’ve ever heard of  in My Name Is Trinity and Trinity Is Still My Name.

I think I’ll skip Krull.

Update 27 February 2010:

It’s amazing what you’l find on YouTube. In September 2008 HouseAbruzzo posted this photo video of movies filmed in Abruzzo.

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Filmed In Abruzzo

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