The Star Maker

• Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Romantic Drama, Crime Drama
• Themes: Assumed Identities, Cons and Scams
• Main Cast: Sergio Castellitto
• Release Year: 1995
• Country: IT
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

This Italian film was released in 1995 and slowly made its way around the world; its English title is The Star Maker. Like the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso by the same writer-director, Guiseppe Tornatore, it's drenched in the filmmaker's love for cinema. In Sicily in the early 1950s, Joe Morelli (Sergio Castellitto) is a con man who travels by truck from village to village posing as a film company representative. For a fee, he offers the rubes screen tests, using passages from a script of Gone with the Wind and encouraging their hopes with lines such as "Success awaits you!" Morelli's camera brings out people's hidden sides, including a soldier's war trauma, a woman's protests at being accused of prostitution, and a policeman who recites poetry. Begging for a chance at the stardom Morelli purportedly offers, Beata (Tiziana Lodato) asks Morelli to take her with him. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Cast

Jane Alexander - Princess; Antonella Attili - Nurse; Leo Gullotta - Vito; Clelia Rondinella - Anna's mother; Franco Scaldati - Mastropaolo; Tony Sperandeo - Primo Badalamenti; Leopoldo Trieste - Mute Man; Nicola di Pinto - Clerk; Sergio Castellitto - Joe Morelli; Luigi Maria Burruano - Womanizer; Tano Cimarosa - Bordonaro

Credit

Beatrice Bordone - Costume Designer, Marco Guidone - First Assistant Director, Giuseppe Tornatore - Director, Giuseppe Tornatore - Editor, Massimo Quaglia - Editor, Mario Cotone - Executive Producer, Ennio Morricone - Composer (Music Score), Ennio Morricone - Songwriter, Francesco Bronzi - Production Designer, Dante Spinotti - Cinematographer, Vittorio Cecchi Gori - Producer, Rita Cecchi Gori - Producer, Massimo Loffredi - Sound/Sound Designer, Giuseppe Tornatore - Screenwriter

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