Too Bad She's Bad

I mentioned the fun little comedy Too Bad She's Bad when its female lead, Sophia Loren, was TCM's Star of the Month last June. The movie is airing again at 3:15 PM ET today.

Marcello Mastroianni plays a cab driver who picks up Loren and two of her male friends, who ask him to take the three of them to the beach. It quickly transpires that they're out to steal his lovely new taxicab. The police are no help (this is Italy, after all), so Mastroianni decides to pursue matters directly with Loren's father. The only problem with that is that it turns out the father is also a thief, stealing the bags of well-off travelers at the train station. Indeed, the whole family is a gang of petty thieves! What does our poor cab driver do next? The answer should be obvious: as in Remember the Night, the way to deal with a lady crook is to fall in love with her. True, that's got a lot of complications of its own....

Too Bad She's Bad is a pretty good comedy. As a foreign comedy, it does suffer some from having to read the subtitles, especially when the movie is such a rapid-fire comedy. However, the leads are all quite enjoyable to watch -- especially a young Sophia Loren, who is not burdened by any language difficulties -- as is the cinematography of Rome as it was in the same era as Roman Holiday. It's also not a bad introduction to the Italian cinema of that era. Fortunately, it has been released to DVD, although as I've mentioned in conjunction with other foreign movies, the lesser interest makes for higher prices.