It Started in Naples (1960) ⭐ 6.3 | Comedy, Drama (original) (raw)

The film that taught me to like Clark Gable

This will be hard for many film lovers to believe, but I never liked Clark Gable. I've seen some of his classics like "Gone With the Wind" and "It Happened One Night", and I was always turned off by the narcissistic, arrogant jerk he always seemed to play. I only wanted to see this film because I was about to take a trip to Naples and I was hoping for some nice scenery. I was also hoping Gable wouldn't ruin it for me completely.

Jackpot! The combination of the location filming, interesting premise, clever writing, humor, solid supporting performances by Marietto and Vittorio De Sica, and Gable's highly entertaining portrayal of a short-tempered curmudgeon rather than his usual dashing know-it-all really made this film for me. I don't know how many times I've watched it. I even bought the DVD, and I buy very few due to a serious lack of storage space, because I knew I would want to share it.

During the time I spent in Naples I was constantly reminded of things in the movie: fireworks, schedules that are wrong but 'everyone knows it', endless varieties of coffee… this movie really "gets" Naples, and surprisingly some things about it haven't changed all that much in fifty years.

And now that I'm finally feeling well-disposed towards Mr. Gable, maybe I'll have to give some of his other work a second try.