Tea with Mussolini
- Director: Franco Zeffirelli
- Writer: John Mortimer; Franco Zeffirelli
- Producer: Marco Chimenz; Clive Parsons
CGiii Comment
Forget the auto-biographical slant to this...
Sit back and enjoy...rarely does a cast of this magnitude appear together on screen.
Pretty bloody good.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
1935. A group of elderly British women, who the Italians have named the Scorpioni, have chosen Italy, specifically Florence, as a place to live to blend their proper British sensibilities with their love of Italian art and culture. One of those Scorpioni, Mary Walsh, works as the English secretary for Paolo Innocente, who, in part because of his own wife's adamant refusal, largely neglects his illegitimate adolescent son, Luca, despite Paolo's want for Luca to grow up to be a proper young man, much like the English. Luca has lived in an orphanage since his dressmaker mother's death, death a concept that Luca does not yet understand. As such, he often runs away looking for his mother. On a mutual agreement between Paolo and Mary, Mary becomes Luca's guardian, she who will receive help in raising Luca by her fellow Scorpioni and financial help from Paolo as needed.
Cast & Characters
Cher as Elsa Morganthal Strauss-Armistan;
Judi Dench as Arabella;
Joan Plowright as Mary Wallace;
Maggie Smith as Lady Hester Random;
Lily Tomlin as Georgie Rockwell;
Baird Wallace as Luca;
Charlie Lucas as Luca;
Massimo Ghini as Paolo;
Paolo Seganti as Vittorio Fanfanni;
Claudio Spadaro as Mussolini;
Mino Bellei as Cesare;
Paul Chequer as Wilfred Random, aka Miss Lucy;
Tessa Pritchard as Connie Raynor;
Michael Williams as British Consul;
Paula Jacobs as Molly