Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Three separate stories with the same two actors. In Naples, Adelina sells contraband cigarettes and stays continuously pregnant to exploit a gap in Italian law and keep out of prison. In Milan, the wealthy and bored Anna takes her working-class lover for a drive in her husband's Rolls-Royce and it ends with the car wrecked. In Rome, Mara, a prostitute living near Piazza Navona, befriends a young seminary student on a neighbouring balcony and promises a week of celibacy to send him back to his studies. Vittorio De Sica directed. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni appear in all three parts. Its most cited scene is the striptease in the Mara episode. Loren was coached for it by Jacques Ruet, the choreographer for the Crazy Horse. It won Best Foreign Language Film at the 37th Academy Awards. It grossed 9.3 million dollars in North America and was the third-highest-grossing Italian film at the time. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian comedy and the Loren and Mastroianni pairing. Who it is not for: anyone expecting all three parts to be equal. The Milan episode sits well below the other two.