Tea with Mussolini
Italy/UK 1998
Reviewed by Andy Medhurst
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Florence, Italy, 1934. Mary Wallace, one of a group of elderly expatriate Englishwomen nicknamed the Scorpioni, finds herself looking after Luca, the illegitimate son of her employer, after the boy's mother has died. Rather than abandon him to an orphanage, Mary decides to raise Luca, assisted by the other Scorpioni, including their self-appointed leader Lady Hester and the artistic but disorganised Arabella. Hester is dismayed by a visit from Elsa, a rich American-Jewish socialite, whom Hester regards as intolerably vulgar. However, Elsa sets up a trust fund for Luca before leaving Italy.
As the fascist regime tightens its hold, public-order disturbances prompt Lady Hester to contact Mussolini himself. He invites her to Rome for tea and reassurances, a gesture Hester attributes to her status as a diplomat's widow, but which is really a publicity stunt. Luca's father sends him away to school in Austria. When he returns years later, Italy is at war with Britain and the Scorpioni have been interned. Elsa secretly pays for the Scorpioni to be moved to more comfortable quarters. Covertly, she helps Italian Jews out of the country and enlists Luca in her mission, though his willingness to help dwindles when he sees Elsa becoming involved with a local lawyer, Vittorio. After Pearl Harbor, Elsa is also interned and Luca discovers that Vittorio is scheming to steal her wealth and send her to her death. Luca and the local partisans help Elsa escape. Allied troops liberate the town and the Scorpioni are freed.
Review
Submerged under an avalanche of divas, costumed and art-directed to within an inch of its life, swathed in sentimental music and explanatory intertitles which make it feel like the third-best film of 1954, and boasting a moment where Maggie Smith stops a Nazi soldier from shooting Judi Dench by shouting, "Stop this nonsense at once", it's safe to say that Tea with Mussolini is not uncamp. Not so much a date movie or a chick flick as a film for the perfect evening out with your ageing gay uncle, it serenely glides along as if the last 30 years of cinema history had never happened.
All of which lends it a certain reprehensible charm. Franco Zeffirelli is 76-years-old after all, and to expect him to modify the well-plumped plushness of his early middlebrow hits would be churlish. This is an old man's film or, to be precise, an old queen's film, awash in a rapt savouring of stellar femininity and endearingly predictable in its casting of inept but decorative young men. The plot takes elements from Zeffirelli's own childhood but embroiders them into a wider fabric by introducing fictional characters. The figure of Elsa, for example, is an invention, but who can blame Zeffirelli for wanting Cher in his young life, particularly a Cher dressed to the hilt in a succession of beyond-drag gowns?
The difference between Cher and the theatrical British cast's acting registers is deftly turned into a plot device, placing the clash of outlooks between their characters at the narrative's core. Smith does her party piece of pinched imperious haughtiness, Dench floats about twitchily like Sandy Dennis playing Isadora Duncan and Plowright embodies no-nonsense maternal dependability. Cher has little trouble slipping into the role of glamour personified, prompting an awestruck Italian to ask, "Are all American women as exciting as you?" "Alas," she replies, timing the pause to perfection, "no." Her later switch to doughty freedom fighter makes some demands on our incredulity, but she does pull off a to-die-for last scene, gorgeously stoical and irresistibly Garboesque as the partisans' boat rows her to safety.
Buried beneath the film's satin surface are some gestural attempts at addressing questions of sexual politics. The presence of lesbian archaeologist Georgie (played by Lily Tomlin as if she were auditioning for the role of Indiana Jones) signifies this, as does the curious subplot which sees Lady Hester's nephew Wilfred dressed as a woman to escape detection. When the strain of this becomes too much, he strips off, shouts (not with masses of conviction), "I'm a man," and runs away to join the partisans, instantly sprouting stubble in the process. The trouble is that he looks immensely more convincing in the first kind of drag than the second, implying perhaps that while anti-fascist guerrilla subversion may be a fine and noble cause, it's never as important in a Zeffirelli film as the swish of an epigram or the cut of a frock.
Credits
- Producers
- Riccardo Tozzi
- Giovannella Zannoni
- Clive Parsons
- Screenplay
- John Mortimer
- Franco Zeffirelli
- Based on the autobiography of Franco Zeffirelli
- Director of Photography
- David Watkin
- Editor
- Tariq Anwar
- Art Directors
- Carlo Centolavigna
- Gioia Fiorella Mariani
- Music/Orchestrations
- Alessio Vlad
- Stefano Arnaldi
- ©Medusa Film spa/Cineritmo srl/Cattleya srl/Business Affair Productions Ltd
- Production Companies
- A Medusa Film/Cattleya, Cineritmo (Rome)/Film and General Productions (London) co-production
- Executive Producer
- Marco Chimenz
- Associate Producer
- Pippo Pisciotto
- Production Supervisor
- Pino Butti
- Production Co-ordinator
- Sara Rossi
- Production Manager
- Alessandro Loy
- Unit Managers
- Marco Olivieri
- Rizia Ortolani
- Location Managers
- Florence:
- Erika Gherardi
- Deborah Gherardi
- Post-production Supervisor
- Alistair Hopkins
- 2nd Unit Director
- Daniele Nannuzzi
- Assistant Directors
- Pippo Pisciotto
- Justin Muller
- Roberto Tatti
- Luciano Bacchielli
- Luigi Spoletini
- Filippo Fassetta
- Script Supervisor
- Angela Allen
- Casting
- Directors:
- Emma Style
- Mirta Guarnaschelli
- Crowd:
- Silvano Spoletini
- ADR Voice:
- Louis Elman
- Script Consultant
- David Sweetman
- Camera Operator
- Mark Moriarty
- Digital Effects
- The Film Factory at VTR
- Digital Effects Producer:
- Simon Giles
- Digital Effects Supervisor:
- Alan Church
- Digital Effects Artists:
- Dave Sewell
- Sally Clayton
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Giovanni Corridori
- Costume Designers
- Jenny Beavan
- Anna Anni
- Alberto Spiazzi
- Chief Make-up Artist
- Franco Corridoni
- Chief Hairdresser
- Maria Teresa Corridoni
- Titles Design
- Janice Mordue
- Titles/Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Music Performed by
- Orchestra di Roma
- Music Producer
- Claudio Messina
- RTI Music
- Sound Engineer
- Fabio Venturi
- Music Mixer
- Steve Parr
- Soundtrack
- "Mattinata Fiorentina" by D'Anzi, Galdieri, performed by Alberto Rabagliati; "Sulla carrozzella" by Filippini, Morbelli, performed by Odoardo Spadaro; "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach, performed by Cher; "Tulipan" by Maria Grever, Morbelli, performed by Trio Lescano; "Creole Clarinet" by/performed by Keith Nicholls; "Stomping at the Ritz", "Moonlight Magic" by/performed by Alan Moorhouse
- Production Mixer
- Brian Simmons
- Re-recording Mixers
- Gerry Humphreys
- Dean Humphreys
- Craig Irving
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Mike Wood
- Sound Effects Editors
- Steve Schwalbe
- Mark Auguste
- ADR
- Mixer:
- John Bateman
- Editor:
- Colin Ritchie
- Foley
- Editor:
- Richard Fettes
- Animal Trainers
- Pasquale Martino
- Marco Billeri
- Cast
- Cher
- Elsa
- Judi Dench
- Arabella
- Joan Plowright
- Mary Wallace
- Maggie Smith
- Lady Hester
- Lily Tomlin
- Georgie
- Charlie Lucas
- Luca, as a child
- Baird Wallace
- Luca
- Massimo Ghini
- Paolo
- Paolo Seganti
- Vittorio
- Michael Williams
- British consul
- Mino Bellei
- Cesare
- Paul Chequer
- Wilfred
- Paula Jacobs
- Molly
- Tessa Pritchard
- Connie
- Claudio Spadaro
- Mussolini
- Bettine Milne
- Edith
- Hazel Parsons
- Hazel
- Helen Stirling
- Ursula
- Kathleen Doyle
- Norma
- Gianna Giachetti
- Signora Badaloni
- Chris Larkin
- Major Gibson
- Giovanni Nannini
- sacristan
- Pino Colizzi
- Dino Grandi
- Jack Basehart
- Count Bernardini
- Giacomo Gonnella
- Clemente Abete
- carabinieri
- Roberto Farnese
- Maurizio
- Chris Tattanelli
- Carmelo
- Claudia Piccoli
- Anna
- Allan Caister Pearce
- American dealer
- Herman Weiskopf
- German officer
- Benedetta Magini
- Giulia Meyer
- Beppe Landini
- Menotti
- Giuseppe Rossi Borghesano
- butler
- Marcellina Ruocco
- Adriana
- Ferdinando Ferrini
- Professor Cassuto
- Massimo Salvianti
- leading Fascist
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS Sound
- Colour by
- Cinecittà