Bello onesto emigrato Australia sposerebbe compaesana illibata (A Girl in Australia). 1971. Italy. Directed by Luigi Zampa. Screenplay by Zampa, Rodolfo Sonego, based on a story by Sonego. With Claudia Cardinale, Alberto Sordi, Riccardo Garrone. In Italian; English subtitles. 107 min.
Poor and lonely, wracked with various tropical maladies from languishing for 20 years in faraway Australia, Alberto Sordi is the immigrant postal-service lineman who decides to improve his sad lot by finding a mail-order bride back home in Italy. When that bride turns out to be the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale, he shyly uses his handsome friend’s photo to lure her halfway across the world, not realizing she, too, is down at the heels, a prostitute seeking to put thousands of miles between herself and her pimp. Luigi Zampa capped off his underappreciated filmmaking career, infusing Neorealism with burlesque comedy, with this wonderful throwback to commedia all’Italiana traditions, casting two megastars (Sordi and Cardinale, who won a Donatello prize for her performance) and several notable supporting actors (Riccardo Garrone, Corrado Olmi, Angelo Infante) opposite real-life Italian immigrants in sunbaked locations throughout Cairns, Sydney, Brisbane, and the old frontier mining town of Broken Hill.