MonsterPerfect
Good idea lost in the noise
Tacticalin
An absolute waste of money
DipitySkillful
an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
elvircorhodzic
YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is a romantic comedy, which consists of three stories set in different parts of Italy. All three stories are framed in a romantic farce, which examines relationships through common life issues, such as poverty, adultery, sex and religion.Stories about three very different women and the men they attract.Adelina sells black-market cigarettes in Naples. Her husband is unemployed. She tries to avoid a jail sentence at any cost.In Milan, Anna drives a Rolls, is bored, and picks up a writer, who is her lover. She talks dreamily of running off with him until he dents her car. After that, she shows her true face.Mara, who works as a prostitute from her apartment in Rome, turns the head of a naive seminarian. After talking with his grandmother, she wants to help a young man, while her nervous client from Bologna impatiently waiting.A male protagonist is exposed to tragicomic sobering, while a female protagonist is in a kind of inner conflicts, in each of the three stories. That's the point. The different characters of people are exposed to very strange situations, through which they question their relationships.The scenery is very impressive, especially in the first story. That Neapolitan atmosphere in explosion of colors in a narrow streets is truly remarkable. The dialogues are, here and there, trivial and empty. Humor is somewhat forced, but it's pretty luscious. Characterization is not bad at all.Sophia Loren (Adelina Sbaratti, Anna Molteni and Mara) is a temperamental and brave housewife, an elegant and selfish rich woman and a sensitive prostitute who would talk about morality. Yes, Ms. Loren looks divine in each of these women.Marcello Mastroianni (Carmine Sbaratti, Renzo and Augusto Rusconi) is a fertile, but useless husband, a cautious lover and an impatient client, who can not accept the fact that he's in love with a beautiful prostitute. Mr. Mastroianni is mostly a muddled and confused character in each of the three stories.I will say that this is another successful commedia all'italiana
JoeKulik
{{{ Fandor.com has this film available for online viewing in a version tat has none of the technical problems cited in other reviews here about this film.}}} Vittorio Di Sica's Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow (1963), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren is a very entertaining and artistic film. This is a three segment film, with each segment telling a story about a completely different romantically involved couple, and with very different circumstances in each story. The romantic couple in each story, each segment, is portrayed by Mastroianni and Loren.The acting performances by Mastroianni and Loren in this film as a whole are outstanding. Each segment of this film, being such a different type story from the others, required them to veritably assume a different personality in each segment. Both Mastroianni and Loren did so very convincingly. This film, and its three divergent story lines, required a real chemistry between these two heavyweights of Italian cinema, which they apparently have. It is really amazing to watch these two fine actors in this film act in unison in each segment, acting as though the persona of the character in each individual segment was conceived and written just for them.There is no deep "meaning" or esoteric symbolism in this film. It is just great storytelling at its best. "Just spinning a good yarn" times three. Yet, Di sico's excellent direction, and the excellent performances by both Mastroianni and Loren, brings some difficult to comprehend type of cohesion to these three divergent stories, as if each segment was just a part of a comprehensive whole story. I would suppose that this "comprehensive whole story" might just be called "the story of life". Each divergent story segment is a little "slice of life", somehow fitting into the larger "slice of life" that is the whole film.This film has great artistic merit in that it convincingly portrays, and even celebrates in a way, the very "stuff of life", of everyday life, of your life and mine. This is an artistic film inasmuch it successfully portrays the relentless and indomitable spirit of life, of mundane and ordinary everyday life.
Steven Torrey
This is a fine movie. Funny and heartwarming. A series of 3 short stories--slice of life stories they would be called in Lit class. As a beauty, she works best with dark hair--not really a blonde or red hair. The visual depiction of the locals are stunning--Naples, Rome, Milano. One looks at a movie for it's place in the form, the genre, or for the artists who played the role; as a film from Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani or director Vittorio de Sica alone makes the movie worth looking at to see where the movie falls in their oeuvre. Like so many short stories, it's easy to overlook the import of the story for it's being so slight; these stories carry their weight and convey that import most excellently. The short story/vignettes, for all their gossamer, hold the weight.
zetes
In my opinion, Vittorio De Sica really lost most of his talent when he met up with Sophia Loren. His films with her always feel like mush compared to his earlier masterpieces, even the much lauded Two Women. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is comprised of three short stories, all starring Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. This might be De Sica's worst film if it weren't for the third segment. The first two are really poor. The first, "Adelina" (all three are named after Loren's character), is about a married woman who sells illegal cigarettes on the street. The cops try to arrest her, but cannot since she's pregnant. No pregnant woman can go to jail, and they get six months after the birth, while nursing, before they can be sent, too. The solution? Obviously, keep getting pregnant so they can never send her to jail. Soon, with seven kids, Mastroianni is too tired to keep fathering children. This story is just plain stupid. The second story is so negligible it barely exists. It's called "Anna" and Loren is a rich woman cheating on her husband with Mastroianni. The two of them drive around in a car for a while. Who cares? It's all too bad, too, because "Mara," the third story, is excellent. Not as good as De Sica's masterpieces, but wonderful all the same. Loren is a high class prostitute who gets into an argument with her elderly neighbor after she flirts with her grandson, who is in the seminary. After the argument, the kid decides to quit and the old woman and Loren join forces to convince him to go back. Mastroianni is hilarious as an eager john getting more and more irked that his time with Loren is getting compromised. The whole film is worth sitting through for this, but I'd almost suggest just fast-forwarding to this third part. It also features Loren's infamous striptease. The movie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1965.