La donna nel mondo (1963)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Directors:

Paolo Cavara
Gualtiero Jacopetti
(more)

Writers:

Paolo Cavara (writer)
Gualtiero Jacopetti (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

30 January 1963 (Italy)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Exploitation | Medical Footage | Mondo | Birth Of A Baby Footage

Cast

Peter Ustinov

...

Narrator (voice)

Directed by
Paolo Cavara
Gualtiero Jacopetti
Franco Prosperi

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Paolo Cavara		writer
Gualtiero Jacopetti		writer
Franco Prosperi		writer

Original Music by
Nino Oliviero
Riz Ortolani

Cinematography by
Paolo Cavara
Gualtiero Jacopetti
Franco Prosperi

Film Editing by
Gualtiero Jacopetti

Thanks
Belinda Lee	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Cinematografica RI.RE
• Cineriz
• Tempo Film

Distributors

• Embassy Pictures Corporation (1963) (USA) (theatrical) (dubbed)
• Blue Underground (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• International Film Distributors (Canada) (as "Women of the World")
• Nippon Columbia Co. Ltd. (Japan) (VHS) (as "Sekai jozoku monogatari")
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (1992) (USA) (VHS)
• Spike K.K. (Japan) (DVD) (as "Yakopetti no sekai jozoku monogatari")
• Spike K.K. (Japan) (VHS) (as "Yakopetti no sekai jozoku monogatari")

Also Known As:

Women of the World

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 (1964) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (cut)

Company:

Cinematografica RI.RE

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Godfathers of Mondo (2003) (V)

WOMEN OF THE WORLD (Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi and Paolo Cavara, 1963) **

After a little over 5 years from its release, Blue Underground's "The Mondo Cane Collection" is still, for my money, the biggest scam in the history of DVD. It's not because the films themselves were not as "shocking" as they had been played up to be (I had watched most of them on Italian TV already) or because the discs were shoddily presented but for the reason that, after hyping their "10,000 Limited Edition" status – which doubtlessly duped many a serious film collector (myself included) into springing for the $120 set – these same films (indeed discs) have subsequently, in 2005 and 2008, been variously reissued by the same company under different combinations for half the price they were originally being offered for! This deceit perhaps explains why it has taken me all this time to pop any of the 8 discs included in the original set into my DVD player for the first time – although, as I said before, only 2 of them (the title under review and the feature-length documentary on the duo of controversial film-makers) had been completely unfamiliar to me. As it turned out, WOMEN OF THE WORLD was pretty blah as well…which kind of increased my despondency about the whole bloody affair! Anyway, what we have here is a disparate depiction of the plight of women around the world circa 1962: from Israeli freedom fighters to Japanese pearl divers, from mature Hamburg whores to Swiss pain-free birth clinics, etc. Actually, watching the women from the exotic regions going about their strenuous daily work routine (carrying heavy loads and so on) while their lethargic husbands look impassively on, laze about or, worse still, put on make up and act queer, did provoke the occasional heckle from the undersigned but, I regret to say, it was mostly a rather dull ride. At least, the music (by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliveiro) is, typically for like product, quite good. While on the Italian version, the occasionally witty narration is provided by one of the film-makers himself (Jacopetti), the English translation (which is also present on the disc and, inexplicably, it reverted to while I was watching) is read by Peter Ustinov!