33 thoughts on “Sophia Loren Movies”

1. The legendary songress and actress Juliette Greco died a couple of days ago.
   Her parents were part of the French Resistance and she herself was arrested by the Gestapo and put into a concentration camp. After the war she became the most important French singer, influencing many others, including the Beatles, who wrote “Michelle” in her honor.
   Miss Greco starred in French films and later in the United States starred in such films as The Sun Also Rises (1957) with Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power; John Huston’s Roots of Heaven (1958), a film ahead of its time about the declining world’s environment with Errol Flynn and Orson Welles; A Crack in the Mirror (1960) with Welles, and several others.
   She made dozens of best-selling albums and gave hundreds of concerts.
   May you rest in peace Juliette Greco!

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   1. Hey Frank…thanks for sharing the sad news of the passing of Juliette Greco. Good background information on her. I did have to look her up on IMDb but I did recognize her when I did. I personally remember her best in The Sun Also Rises…Flynn’s last great role. Rest in Peace Ms. Greco.

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2. Thank you for featuring Sophia Loren in your website. Whatever, her personal flaws and films, that fact that an impoverished Italian women became an international film star is an extraordinary acconplishment.
   Re the comment that she was paid more than Charlton Heston for El Cid is qukesitonable. By 1961, when the film was made Heston had starred in three of the top 10 grossing films of all time: The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments, and Ben-Hur. Sophia only had limited appeal in U.S. films, as your film grosses show, even if at often she was paired with top Hollywood male actors. Would a producer pay her more than Heston, who was a much greater box office draw? Very unlikely. The rumor derives from the comments of one person in the extras for the DVD version of El Cid. When Heston turned down working with her in The Fall of the Roman Empire (which is an excellent film), was a boxoffice disaster.
   The much-maligned Boy on a Dolphin grossed $139.4 in the U.S. is her fourth highest grossing film (thanks to Alan Ladd and less to Sophia, who was no doubt stunningly beautiful). Critics have been incredibly hard on Ladd, mostly due to his alleged height. However, Cagney, Raft, Bogart, Tom Cruise, Pacino, De Niro, etc. and hundreds of other leading men have been short. It is life. Ironically, Sophia in real life married a short, heavyset Italian producer (a brilliant one at that), Carlo Ponti. So much for the reality of life. Love comes in all sizes and types.
   God bless you Sophia and thank you for decades of fine films. Happy Birthday!

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3. Happy 85th birthday to Sophia Loren!

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   1. Hey Flora. Thanks for the birthday shout out to Sophia Loren.

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4. 1 STEVE I’ve mentioned that in their Hollywood heyday Sophia Loren and La Lollo were hyped up as great rivals because they were Italians competing in the same period of movie history. I preferred Gina as for me she had more sexual warmth than Sophia. I thought that cuddly Gina could easily be regarded as one of the fashionable new “sex kitten” wave whereas I saw Sophia as the Ice Maiden beautiful and shapely though she was.

   2 One thing they had in common though was that as Bruce’s chart amply demonstrates both of them depended heavily on the important Hollywood stars of the day to help carry their movies. For example Gina had Rock, Burt and Yul whereas Sophia had the likes of Chuck, Cary and Marlon [though unfortunately in his Chaplin outing with her poor Mumbles was unable to carry her too far!]. Gina never made the AFI’s legends lists but Sophia did, though I thought that she was one of the least deserving entries on the female list. Like La Lollo Sophia had a prolific career in European/Italian movies before making it in Hollywood.

   3 Anyway enough of my personal perceptions about personalities and on to an examination of the pictorials in your Loren video which actually speak quite well for themselves, and the posters I most admire are Firepower, Man of La Mancha, both versions of the ones for Legend of the Lost, Heller in Pink Tights, Woman of the River, Cassandra Crossing, Five Miles to Midnight, Pride and the Passion, Gold of Naples, and the very raunchy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

   4 Great stills from my viewpoint were black and white solo of the young Loren, her and Mr. Mumbles, two excellent ones from Boy on a Dolphin, one of which was with a very relaxed Laddie, Sophia and Chuck, and her with my Greg in Arabesque. It must be my birthday with 4 of my personal idols featuring prominently in a single video though a poster for Arabesque has the wrong order of billing – no way would my Greg have come 2nd to Loren at any stage of her heyday. You and Bruce agree on 3 of Sophia’s Top 5. Overall a top-notch video presentation easily worth a 97% rating.

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   1. Hello Bob, thanks for reviewing, rating and commenting on my Sophia Loren video, it is appreciated. Happy you liked the posters and stills.

      Sophia was a lot more famous than Gina, probably the most popular European actress of them all at her peak. Look at her co-stars – Charlton Heston, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd, William Holden, Anthony Quinn, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and John Wayne!

      It’s funny how foreign movie posters of American movies change the order of billing to suit the taste of their countrymen. I remember seeing a poster for The Cannonball Run with Jackie Chan’s name in big bold letters followed by the rest of the cast in smaller letters and his image was predominant on the poster.

      Looking at Bruce’s chart – El Cid was easily Loren’s biggest grossing film and it has to be her most famous, even in Italy, the film was a smash hit. She was paid more than Chuck Heston to star in that epic. I think she was the first actress to earn a million dollars for a movie, beating Liz Taylor by a couple of years. Heston was mightily miffed when he found out how much she was being paid. But I’ve seen photos of the two of them many years later hugging and kissing, so, water under the bridge than.

      Three of Loren’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and El Cid. Three have scored 9 – Fall of the Roman Empire, Houseboat and Operation Crossbow.

      Her highest rated at IMDB was A Special Day scoring 8.1 – it topped Bruce’s chart too. One of my sources gave it 4 out of 10, andother 6 out of 10, which knocked it out of my video top 5.

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      1. HI STEVE

         1 Very interesting backchat as usual.

         2 Yes sometimes concessions can be made to popular European artists in their own countries. However I’ve mentioned before that when Italian actress Anna Magnani approached Mr Mumbles on the set of the 1960 The Fugitive Kind and asked if she could have top billing “in my native Italy” and when he said no she apparently went into hysterics in front of cast and crew. Not having seen any of the Italian posters for that flick I can’t say whether her histrionics did the trick.

         3 Just like every now again this star or that will be credited for “saving the studio from bankruptcy” so we get conflicting stories about who was “the first to get a million dollars”. For example whilst Liz is the most publicised in that respect it was stated by one of his biographers that Mr M got it for the aforementioned Fugitive Kind but the producers didn’t want such a huge salary publicised. Other historians reckons that the accolade goes to Golden Holden who got more than $1 million for Bridge on River Kwai but to reduce tax on the sum Golden had it paid to him in instalments over a number of years so that the size of the amount went under the radar in its day. However we should keep thinks in perspective because whilst $1 million was big in its day for a star’s salary it would be worth about $8 million in today’s money and pales beside the salaries paid to the like of Tom Cruise and even the likes of Demi Moore in the 1990s when she was said to have got $20 million for one movie.

         4 Nevertheless stars’ salaries were getting heftier for their times in the 1950s/early 1960s and Chuck in fact went public in criticising the rising levels and he said that the only two 1950s stars that he felt were worth high fees were the Duke and Mumbles. Accordingly when Chuck came to make El Cid in 1960/61 possibly the producers were taking him at his word !! However I doubt if he ever starved.

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5. 1 BRUCE I have long thought that Sophia was one of the weakest entries in the AFI legends lists because her box office was not great and although the update improves things she still has only 5 films [merely increased from I think 4 prior to the update] that crashed your million dollar barrier and was not the top billed star in any of them being buttressed by established major male stars though she did acknowledge a debt to Grant for helping her cope with comedy routines in Houseboat. but said she didn’t like Laddie having to stand on a box to make love to her in Boy on a Dolphin

   2 At least Myrna was in a large number of high grossing hits even if they weren’t always her own! However honour where honour is due and Sophia was a beautiful woman, AFI DID recognise her as a Legend and she is probably one of the most successful actresses ever to break out of the foreign cinema into Hollywood films which must have been quite hard to do in her day Accordingly I welcome her page and its comprehensive update

   3 In 1969 singer Peter Starstedt released a song Where Do You Go to My Lovely? which was a massive hit and was about a girl who rises from the poverty-stricken back streets of Naples to join the jet set, live in Paris and become rich and famous. Many people at the time thought he was singing about Loren:

   You talk like Marlene Dietrich —
   And you live in a fancy apartment
   On the Boulevard of St Michel,
   Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
   And you’re a friend of Sacha Distel.

   However Peter denied the connection saying that the earlier similar lives and the subsequent rise to fame of the subject of his song and Sophia were just coincidental. Whether or not that’s so it demonstrates the fame Sophia achieved when many people immediately associated the song with her.

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   1. Hey Bob…..I agree with you 100%…. just by going by the stats….this is easily the worst group of movies for all 50 legends. Almost all of her Hollywood movies under performed. Her greatest success occurred when she returned overseas and made some good movies….but those movies barely registered in the states.

      She was without a doubt a superstar and one of the most famous people (not just actresses) in the world. I think Angelina Jolie and Loren have a lot in common.

      Good stuff about the song…seems Loren influenced some of those lyrics.

      You were right….she had 4 before the update and 5 after…probably one of the least impressive updates yet.

      Thanks for the feedback on our latest update.

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