Isa Miranda
Birth : 1909-07-05, Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Death : 1982-07-08
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Isa Miranda (5 July 1909 – 8 July 1982) was an Italian actress with an international film career.
She worked as a typist whilst attending the drama academy in Milan and training as a stage actress. She went on to play bit parts in Italian films in Rome. Success came with Max Ophüls' film La Signora di tutti (Everybody's Woman) (1934) in which she played Gaby Doriot, a famous film star and fascinating adventuress with whom men cannot help falling in love. Having brought several of them to their ruin, she slits her wrists. This was perhaps Miranda's finest screen performance and it brought in its wake several film offers and a Hollywood contract with Paramount Pictures. There, billed as the "Italian Marlene Dietrich", she played several femme fatale roles in such films as Hotel Imperial (1939) and Adventure in Diamonds (1940).
She returned to Italy soon after the outbreak of World War II and continued to act on the stage and to make films. In 1949, she starred in René Clément's The Walls of Malapaga, which won an Academy Award for the most outstanding foreign language film of 1950, and for Miranda, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Another success of that period was La Ronde (1950), also directed by Ophüls.
Her career took her to France, Germany and England, where she frequently appeared in TV films, including The Avengers. Other notable film appearances include Siamo donne (1953), a portmanteau film where Miranda shares the screen with three other screen legends, Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Ingrid Bergman, Summertime (1955), Gli Sbandati (1955), La Noia (The Empty Canvas, 1963), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and Liliana Cavani's Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter, 1974).
Miranda was married to the Italian director and producer Alfredo Guarini until his death in 1981.
She died in Rome in 1982.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Isa Miranda, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
madre di Maria
Lorè
In order to convince Raimonda, a wealthy noble woman, to finance his project for a holiday resort, Saverio gets engaged to Clotilde, her mentally-disturbed and sex-obsessed adolescent daughter. He plans to have her kidnapped and raped by an accomplice so she won't be a virgin anymore and he'll have an excuse to get out of the impending marriage. But what he doesn't plan is to fall in love with the girl...
Countess Stein
A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.
Teacher
Paolo and Maria are two elementary teachers, who love each other, but can not have a child.
Countess Federica Donati
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
Elena
A wealthy landowner haunted by the spectre of his dead mother has a fling with a beautiful fugitive who bears a striking resemblance to his missing wife, who may have been murdered.
Mamma Lizzy
Two outlaws compete with each other over a treasure map that will lead them to buried gold while one of them is in league with a sadistic priest-turned-crime lord, while a young Native American girl helps both outlaws and plays both sides against each other.
Sue's Mother
Italian Film Drama
Mrs. Patricia Ruxton
London, England. Dorian Gray is a young man who somehow keeps his beauty eternally, while a mysterious portrait of himself gradually reveals his moral decay.
Tenutaria bordello
Frank was removed from an investigation into Mac Brown, the owner of a pharmaceutical company, who was suspected of drug trafficking and illegal experiments on teenagers. When Brown is murdered, Frank is called to investigate...
Mother
Mysterious romance involving an uninhibited woman and a photographer, shot in strange modernist interiors and abstract sports car-on-a-highway to nowhere exteriors.
Elena
Paola, still young and married to a rich industrialist, seeks an outlet to the uselessness of her life by coming into contact with the young activists of the student movement, meetings she attends. Paula tries to convert even her teenage children Afdera and Prando, to the ideas of the movement, who end up accepting the mother's convictions and agree to participate in an action of sabotage against a large factory. But when they discover that the factory to be sabotaged is precisely that of the father, they renounce the mission, disappointing the mother.
The Marchesa
All eyes focus on the Vatican, watching for the traditional puffs of white smoke that signal the election of the next Pope. This time much more is at stake. The new pontiff may be the only person who can bring peace to a world on the brink of nuclear nightmare.
La duchesse de Bussez
Against the backdrop of the French revolution, young Caroline tries to reunite with her first love, despite her arranged marriage to an older politician.
Isa Grant
On the run from the police, a female thief and her band of robbers take refuge on a desert island where they discover a mansion inhabited by a family whom they take hostage. One of the robbers falls for the couple's daughter.
When a Rolls Royce damages a scooter, the furious owner goes to seek redress, and finds herself face to face with a millionaire capitalist.
Une sage-femme
Anne, a beautiful free-lance photographer, meets with the French medical student Carlo and falls in love. After a passionate love affair Anne becomes pregnant. Now the formerly free-wheeling Carlo finds himself facing a difficult situation. Carlo decides that Anne should abort the child. To raise enough cash Carlo sleeps with a wealthy older woman. Then Ann decides to annul the abortion.
Duchesse d'Angoulême
One Rolls-Royce belongs to three vastly different owners, starting with Lord Charles, who buys the car for his wife as an anniversary present. The next owner is Paolo Maltese, a mafioso who purchases the car during a trip to Italy and leaves it with his girlfriend while he returns to Chicago. Finally, the car is owned by American widow Gerda, who joins the Yugoslavian resistance against the invading Nazis.
Rosa Marotta
When a ransom bid results in the death of a child, the police have only one lead – the old lady who witnessed the kidnapper using a public phone box. Though her recollection is vague, she volunteers to act as bait for the killer – telling the press that she had seen the kidnapper's face and she waits for him to attack.
Madame Benoit
Three thieves rip off a shipment of used money being sent back to the US. As they are escaping the robbery (after having taken a hostage), they wind up on an island in a hotel with an apparently crazed manager and a building full of demented residents.
Catherine de Medicis
Set against the troubled period of the Wars of Religion in France, at a time when the three Henries (Henri III, Henri de Guise and Henri de Béarn) vied for the the throne, these new adventures of Pardaillan have the gallant musketeer defend the rightful king Henri III.Jean gives his full to thwart the Duke of Guise's attempts to have the king assassinated. A heartthrob more than ever, Pardaillan will awake serious interest in many a girl, at times becoming their prey like with Bianca Farnese, De Guise's agent.
Cecilia's Mother
An aspiring young artist breaks from his wealthy, possessive mother to live a bohemian existence in the artist's section of Rome and falls in love with a beautiful model who wants an uncommitted relationship.
Mrs. Mattioli
Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...
la tsarine Elisabeth Petrovana de Russie
Burgundy 1728. Old count Antoine d'Eon is overjoyed. His daughter-in-law has finally given birth to a boy and he will at long last be able to transmit his inheritance to his son Pascal. At least this is what he thinks, for Pascal has concealed from his father the fact that his son was ... a daughter, his eighth daughter! Well, enough is enough and Geneviève has no other choice but become a boy first, then a soldier and even the special envoy of Louis XV, King of France, to Catherine II, the Czarina of Russia.
Betty Farnwell
In Nice, the wealthy widow Betty Farnwell falls for the charms of a handsome young man, Philippe Delaroche. Mrs Farnwell is so taken with Philippe that she persuades her bank to allow him to manage her financial affairs. Philippe, an unscrupulous opportunist, is not slow to turn the situation to his advantage and within no time he is married to his wealthy benefactor. Philippe has barely grown accustomed to wearing a wedding ring when he begins a romantic liaison with his wife’s attractive secretary, Eva. It soon transpires that Eva is even more ruthless than Philippe...
Caterina Marchetti
A widow goes to Italy from South Africa to find out whether or not her late husband's five nephews are worthy of his inheritance...
Lucia Rossello
Mrs. Fischer
The underworld of Cairo is alerted to certain moves of various people in the search for Rommel's treasure. Some are intent on the valuables, while others seek only the documents. The searchers, each working for individual reasons, are: von Brunner, an ex-officer of Rommel's staff who seeks the treasure to aid families of the fallen; Wells, a famous American news photographer out for a scoop; Mrs. Fischer, owner of a luxury riverboat nightclub, who seeks the documents for a foreign power, and Krikorian, pretending to be helping Mrs. Fischer but is really interested in making what he can for himself. Sofia, a cabaret star for Mrs. Fischer, is in love with von Brmmer and unwittingly endangers her life when Mrs. Fischer discovers she is helping von Brunner in his quest.
Contessa Luisa
A group of rich young intellectuals hiding from the war in rural Italy play at being partisans when some disbanded soldiers and some refugees ask them for shelter in their villa. The young and aristocratic Andrea strikes up a friendship with a peasant girl, Lucia. Then the Germans suddenly appear, looking for the real partisans, and the time comes for serious decisions.
Signora Fiorini
Middle-aged Ohio secretary Jane Hudson has never found love and has nearly resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone. But before she does, she uses her savings to finance a summer in romantic Venice, where she finally meets the man of her dreams, the elegant Renato Di Rossi.
La tsarine Alexandra
Gregory Iefommovich Raspoutine is a monk with healing powers and a liking for debauchery who manages to insinuate himself into the court of the Romanoffs thanks to Princess Dikvona. Being the only person able to heal he son of Czar Nicolas II and Czarina Alexandra from his hemophilia, he becomes a very powerful man, which infuriates many.A group of nobles, determined to save the monarchy, start conspiring to murder him.
Françoise Boussard
The title of this French "reality" drama, which translates to Before the Deluge, is a play on Louis XVI's famous prognostication, "Apres moi, le deluge." Set in 1950, the film concentrates on five Parisian adolescents. Certain that the next war will herald the apocalypse, the youngster make plans to run off to a desert island and set up a new society. This, however, will require money, which is why the boys decide to pull off a "necessary" robbery. Idealism collapses in the face of cold reality, as the five youths suffer from the consequences of their actions. Avant le Deluge was one of a group of films cowritten by director Andre Cayatte and Charles Spaak which endeavored to explore the touchy social issues of the day: others in the Cayatte-Spaak canon include the euthanasia-themed Justice est Faite and the capital-punishment tract Nous sommes tous des assassins.
Isa (segment "Isa Miranda")
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
Countess
Mrs. Alvaro (segment "Avarice and Anger")
A French/Italian motion picture drama covering the seven deadly sins in seven separate sections.
Angela Leonardi
Maria is a housmaid and she is being engaged to Berto for fifteen years. Berto has not a lasting job so he is waiting for the death of his uncle Matteo to come into an inheritance. In the meantime Maria goes on with her work, first in the house of an unfaithful wife; then for an actor and his wife on the verge of leaving each other and last for Raffaele who wants to marry her. At last uncle Matteo dies...
Charlotte
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
Marta Larocca
The title of this Italian melodrama translates to Pact with the Devil. However, His Satanic Majesty does not appear in the film. Rather, this expensively produced period piece is more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, with young love threatened by warring families. In his first Italian film, Hollywood veteran Eduardo Cianelli goes through his usual villainous paces as the scheming father of the male lead (Jacques Francois). The most fascinating performance is rendered by Umberto Spadaro, as the village idiot, or is he? Patto col Diavolo makes the most of the visual dynamics of Italy's mountainous Calabrian region.
Marta Manfredini
A French fugitive arrives in Genoa, where he becomes entangled with an Italian woman and her daughter.
Self - film scenes (archive footage)
"Gems" - Embedded in a frame story, the film shows excerpts from 18 entertainment films of the time, among others, "The Gypsy Baron", "The Three Codonas", "La Habanera", "Viennese Blood", "Sophienlund", and "Mask in Blue".
Clarence Holbane
Together with her partner-in-crime Claude, Clarence sets her sites on famed explorer Maxime. It seems that Luguet has stumbled upon the fabled "elephant's graveyard" in the jungles of Africa, and Miranda intends to get her well-manicured mitts on all that valuable ivory.
This melodrama was directed by an émigré Russian from a story by Corrado Alvaro and Emanuele Caracciolo. The latter was murdered by the Nazis in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, before the film’s post-war release. Featuring Miranda and Girotti prior to neo-realist stardom.
Zazà
A glamorous female singer Zazà (Isa Miranda) has an affair with a passerby engineer Dufresne (Antonio Centa). But when Zazà impatiently comes to him in Paris she finds out that he is married and even has a daughter. He wants to escape from his relatives with Zazà, but, disillusioned and exhausted, she rejects his proposition and insists on his coming back to his family.
Sandra Morini
Document Z-3 (Italian:Documento Z-3) is a 1942 Italian spy film directed by Alfredo Guarini and starring Isa Miranda, Claudio Gora and Luis Hurtado. It was one of three Miranda films directed by Guarini that helped re-establish her in Italian cinema following her return from a largely unsuccessful spell in Hollywood. Many critics were not impressed with the film, feeling that Miranda had not recovered the spontaneity of her pre-Hollywood films. This is considered the first movie in which Federico Fellini has worked as a screenwriter.
Marina di Malombra
A nineteenth-century Italian noblewoman, imprisoned in a foreboding lakeside palazzo by her uncle, comes to believe she's possessed by a long ago mistress of the manor.
Dina
In Milan, an unwed mother, forced to flee from her town because of the scandal, meets a doctor who falls in love with her and marries her. But the couple's relationship breaks down almost immediately: the husband is unable to leave behind the woman's past and can not stand a son not his. So Dina, in an attempt to readjust the rapport, entrusts the child to the care of the mother of her seducer (meanwhile deceased). But the sacrifice is beyond her strength, and she's soon taken by the irresistible desire to get her child back: in damp and foggy night, on her way to the station...
Regina
Felice Falcon
A government pilot (George Brent) falls for a woman (Isa Miranda) helping her partner (John Loder) smuggle diamonds out of South Africa.
Anna Warschawska
It is the fate of a small frontier town, adjoining the no-man's-land where the Russians and Austrians are fighting out one of the final campaigns of World War I, to be occupied one day by the Russians, the next by the Austrians, and the inhabitants soon acquire a complacent view of the changing allegiances. To the town comes Ann Warschaska, intent on avenging the suicide of her sister, who has killed herself after being betrayed by an Austrian officer. She knows no more about his identity than the number of his room at the "Hotel Imperial".
Nina Petrovna
Nina Petrovna is a Russian beauty claimed by two Austrian officers.
Velia, a Roman woman
A story of the Second Punic Wars, beginning with Scipio's futile pleas to the Roman Senate to build an army to battle Hannibal, that climaxes with the battle of Zama.
Louise Paleari
Mathias Pascal, saddled with a stupid wife and a nagging mother-in-law, leaves home and is extremely lucky at several gambling resorts. He returns home and discovers that a drowned man, fished out of the river, bears an uncanny likeness to him and is being buried by his family as him. This, to him, is a pleasant turn of events and he goes to Rome, where he falls in love with Louise Paleari. Count Papiano, a jealous suitor of Louise's, threatens him with arrest unless he produces credentials to prove his identity.
Mary Hofer & Bianca Monti
Mira Salviati
Maria Brunetti
Based on fact, Passaporto Rosso (Red Passport) details the plight of a group of poor Italian immigrants who are hired as railroad workers in turn-of-the-century South America. In addition to facing poverty, deprivation, and prejudice, the immigrants are also bedeviled by a raging fever epidemic. Finally achieving a measure of prosperity, the Italians are forced to confront tragedy once more when their grown children march off to WWI. Though Isa Miranda is top-billed, she has very little to do in comparison with male lead Filippo Scelso. Passaporto Rosso was released in the U.S. as Destiny Unknown.
Nennele
Una gigolette
Vera
Gabriella Murge, alias Gaby Doriot
Gaby is expelled from school after a married teacher commits suicide after telling her he can't live without her. Though she has done nothing, she is punished for his act.
La donna cattiva
Based on the 1893 play Der Andere by Paul Lindau.
