Movies

Mio figlio Nerone (1956) Roman history as black comedy. Alberto Sordi plays Nero like Curly Howard, but the star of the movie is Gloria Swanson as his mother Agrippina. I resented the subtitles for forcing me to look away from her magnetic power. She's the only real actor in the film; Vittorio De Sica does a good comic turn as Seneca, and Brigitte Bardot is cute and sometimes alluring as Poppaea but not worth re-naming the movie for - the title for the English-speaking market was Nero's Mistress to cash in on Bardotmania. The story plays wittily upon the well-known Italian mother-son bond, with much of the action being the mutual foiling of each other's schemes while feigning devotion. It's Swanson's movie all the way, and is bright, colorful and entirely fun. 8/10

Not dead yet - not by a long shot.