14 thoughts on “WCW: Sophia Loren

  1. I love Sophia’s costumes in El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire. They’re not authentic, Fall’s are especially fantasible, but they do look lovely on her! Sophia had a rather impressive rack and costumers were clearly determined that audiences would see it!

  2. I’ve watched Madame a few years ago, and it was quite fun. Not sure if her court dresses were very period, but all the bling! and her character creating huge fuss at the court being so blunt! Loved it.

  3. You missed “Two Women”, the movie for which she won her Oscar. Admittedly the costumes are pretty much in tatters for most of the movie so there’s not much of anything of interest frock wise but it is technically historical …. and she did win that Oscar.

  4. Loren has proved herself a good actress but no director can pass up two of her most popular assets.

  5. God, I adore Sophia. Like Ava Gardner, the less make-up she wears, the more haunting her face. Her historical dramas tend to not be nearly as good as her work with Marcello Mastroianni, but I just enjoy watching her. (Has Marcello made enough costume dramas to qualify for MCM?)

    P.S. “An Austrian princess (Loren) falls in love with an American mining engineer in the early 20th century.” is the best capsule summary I’ve read this year.

  6. Little know FACT: El Cid is proof that the New Look was really the Old Look as the silhouette was invented in the 11th century and what goes around comes around. AmIright???

    1. The keyhole necklines are authentic. The layers might be too. But the figure hugging tailoring was all sixties! In the eleventh century men and women alike wore baggy tunics hanging straight from the shoulders and bloused over any belt. Fitted clothes required several more centuries of sartorial development. Not to mention buttons.

  7. I think Nancy’s comment above is spot on; I feel like I just got a mini-lesson on the male gaze. I’m so glad she got roles that seemed to make better use of her, and some gorgeous costumes along the way. (Also, can we talk about how she was playing an older woman in 1965? like, what??)

    For More than a Miracle, I caught part of it on tv as a kid and my sister and I laughed our tails off. It’s delightfully ridiculously, and I do think they had just been running. I think this was after the dishwashing contest–a.k.a. Prince (Omar Sharif)’s attempt to make her the clear choice for his wife as she was a kitchen maid or something. But a sneaky real princess messed with her plates or something, she runs off.. St. Joseph of Cupertino like…floats by? (He’s known as the “flying friar”.) Some sort of reconciliation/it’s ok happens and they all live happily ever after. It’s been years but it was deeply entertaining to us. Very much fantasy/fairytale.

    For Man of La Mancha, when I read the play (and the forward by the playwright) in college, I decided it shouldn’t ever be anything but a stage play–the world of Don Quixote should rely on shadow, light, and imagination, in my view. Be that as it may, I grew up watching the film version and have a deep affection for it. The browns make more sense in context, as it takes place entirely in a prison.

  8. Listen, when you have Sophia Loren in your movie, it’s all about the tits. And such an astounding rack they are.

    1. Yes, sort of like basketballs. Something else I admire about Sophia is that she did get a nose job early on, but a good one; she arrived at an appropriate nose for her large and beautiful bone structure.

  9. Oh goodness, you are giving me high school Spanish class flashbacks with Man de La Mancha. My teacher adored the movie and would sing along with it. I didn’t care for it, but it was the late 90s, so maybe it was a generation thing?

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