by Ted Davis and Linda Kay

English Title: Love in Rome

Directed by: Dino Risi

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Self-possessed intellectual writer and minor aristocrat Marcello Cenni (Peter Baldwin) becomes completely captivated by enticing blonde sexpot Anna Padoan (Mylene Demongeot), who is warm hearted and loving, but who is also serially promiscuous and false. Anna’s inconstancy is a recurring torment to an all too patient Marcello, whose commitment to their relationship is likely to end in bitter frustration.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Walking home after breaking up with clinging vine Fulvia (Elsa Martinelli), Marcello hails a tabby and white street cat, whom he promptly dubs Mr. Cat (although it is actually just a kitten).

Marcello snags the kitten before he can escape and carries Mr. Cat while continuing his progress, asking whether he’d like to come live with him.

Marcello is distracted by Anna, whom he’s seeing for the first time as she’s calling from the street to her landlady because she’s forgotten the key to her boardinghouse. Marcello joins Anna, and introduces her to Mr. Cat.

Anna scruffs Mr. Cat briefly, moving him to her shoulder where he seems very comfortable.

She walks to the curb to sit down, joined by Marcello, and they continue their conversation.

Anna puts Mr. Cat to the side and rises when a neighbor opens the street door to the boardinghouse.

When she returns to the curb, Marcello works quickly — as he kisses her, the cat climbs over them, eventually settling in Anna’s lap.

Anna sets Mr. Cat aside again as Marcello follows her to the door to ostensibly say goodnight, but in reality to continue the seduction, and Mr. Cat is not seen again.

Purr Blur: Later, after Marcello spots Anna leaving a variety show he’s attending with Fulvia, he chases after her into street, passing another street cat several times as he tries and fails to find her. The cat has a similarity to Mr. Cat, but appears to be an adult (perhaps Mr. Cat’s sire?)

There’s also bit of cat imagery shown on the headboard to the side of Anna’s bed where multiple cats are painted.

If one sees similarities between the kitten scene in this film and in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita they wouldn’t have to look much further than the screenwriter of both, Ennio Flaiano, who also included cats in scripts he wrote for Boccaccio ’70 and Juliet of the Spirits. An apparent cat lover, Flaiano is credited with the quote: “My cat does what I would like to do, with less literature.”

Final Mewsings: Is it a requirement in Italy that cats be on hand for night time romantic movie moments?

Many thanks also to Nick Wale for letting us know about the cats in this film.

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