Beautiful but Dangerous

La donna piu bella del mondo - The World's Most Beautiful Girl
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Produced by Maleno Malenotti
Written by Giuseppe Cavagna
Starring Gina Lollobrigida
Vittorio Gassman
Robert Alda
Music by Renzo Rossellini
Cinematography Mario Bava
Edited by Eraldo Da Roma
Release date
 Oct. 21, 1955
Running time
 107 min.
Country Italy
Language Italian

Beautiful But Dangerous (also released as La donna più bella del mondo/ The World's Most Beautiful Woman) is a 1956 French-Italian drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The movie was a co-production between Italy (where it was released as La donna più bella del mondo) and France (where is known with the title La belle des belles).[1] For this film Gina Lollobrigida was awarded with a David di Donatello for Best Actress.[2]

Plot

Lina (Gina Lollobrigida) was an orphan, brought up by her adopted mother getting trained for music. Her mother became sick due to heart attack on the stage, and Lina will go to the stage in place of her mother. But a group of teaser will tease her, by connecting her mother name too and will not allow to perform. From the balcony a person, the prince of Russia, Sergio (Vittorio Gassman) will come down and make the teaser group go out of the theater and asks Lina to perform. It was a very good performance, but at the end she will come to know that mother had another attack, so been send to the long distance hospital. By the night she wanted to go, but there was no way to. Sergio will offer her lift to the hospital, and on the way he will come to know each other. The prince will not tell his real identity, but will say only that he came there for horse competition in the local club, and he stays regularly Paris and he is from Russia. By reaching the hospital, she will left her hand bag in the coach, Sergio by seeing that will put enough money and his golden ring in that, and give the bag to Lina. In hurry she will enter the hospital, and will find her mother is no more.

Next she will manage to enter the horse riding club, and will find out Sergio, stood first in the competition and also came to know that he is the prince. She will return the money and the ring back to him, but, he will say that he will take all the things in Paris. Let her come to Paris, and becoming a very famous singer, and he will find her out!

With the dream she will go back to her music school in Rome and asks for the best teacher, she is ready to pay anything. They will recommend Doria (Robert Alda) who will trained her and bring in Paris. Doria was in love with Lina, but Lina was in Sergio. So she will refuse Doria and will depart from him. She will do enough struggling to get a chance and finally will settle down to some extent with Carmela (Anne Vernon). One of the singer was in jealous with her, and finally would be fired from the opera for her. They would be involved in a fighting, and by seeing this one of the member will have some idea, and makes a live show of shored fighting in between the two ladies to earn money. Lina will own the competition, and there a famous music director Silvai (Mario Del Monaco) will meet her and invites her in theater. From that stage Lina’s name would be famous as ‘the knight’.

One day Doria comes and expresses his love for her again, but she refuses. Before a stage show one day, she will notice in the balcony the prince is there. She will be thrilled. End of the show, she was expecting a bouquet of flower from the prince, but nothing was there. She became most disappointed. That time Silvani will come and invite both the friends for a party in his house. As they agreed to go, suddenly the representative of the Prince will come and send the message that the prince has arranged a party in the honour of Lina. She will accept the offer and finally meet the prince.

In an intimate situation, Prince was trying to say something to Lina, but she was not in the mood to listen other thing. Suddenly the friends of the prince will knock on the door, and over hearing the half wards from them, Lina will misunderstand the Prince, and will thought that he is going to marry somebody else in Russia. She will leave him, and leave Paris for an unknown place.

It was a village side nearby Paris, where Lina, Carmela will stay together and Silvani will come to teach her extensive lesions on opera music. One day, before leaving to Paris, Silvani will say that he loves Lina, and she need not to answer him right then. If at all, any time in life she feels for him, he is there for her. Silvani, in paris meets an opera whose music director was Doria, there they will arrange Lina to sing. Again her name will spread like anything; Doria would be in jealous with Silvani.

Mean time in between the show, one day Sergio will come and meets Lina in dressing room. He refused his uncle’s marriage proposal for him, and came to spend life with Lina. But Lina will refuse him, because of her misconception to the prince and in front of Silvani will say that she will marry him after the show. Mean time Doria will appoint some body to kill Silvani during the scene of a firing squad. Silvani will die, Lina will think it is Sergio, Doria will understand that she didn’t suspect him. So now for him the road is clear, he will take her for stage show in different part of the world. Finally an invitation will come from the Tsar of Russia.

On the way to Russia, due to snowfall the train will halt for two hours, and there Sergio will meet her again. But this time she will accuse him for the murder of Silvani. Getting extremely insulted Sergio will left.

During the meeting with the Tsar and his wife, Lina will see Sergio, and she will say that she wants to sing the new opera Tusca, the last performance with Silvani. By hearing that Doria will object, but the Quinn will show her interest for that.

During the performance, Doria was over tensed, because last time he arranged the murder of Silvani; Lina was doing extreme good, because she was emotionally charged and the Prince Sergio was feeling disguising because he was thinking that Lina is creating pressure on him unnecessarily. Finally at the time of shooting, suddenly Doria will scream and shout ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot’. So finally he will admit to Lina that it was he, who plotted the murder of Silvani out of jealousy.

Finally Lina will go back to the Prince and both of them will walk away.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Mauricio Ponzi. The films of Gina Lollobrigida. Citadel Press, 1982. ISBN 0806510935.
  2. ↑ Enrico Lancia. I premi del cinema. Gremese Editore, 1998. ISBN 88-7742-221-1.
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