The Last Judgment (1961) User Reviews

Playing With Our Fears

[littlemartinarocena · 9/10 · 13 March 2007]

The great duo: Vittorio de Sica and Cesare Zavatine present us with a hyper, neo-realistic, surreal vision of our fears in a magic mixture of horrors and joyfulness. Black and white and color, hope and desolation with an ensemble cast that it's as bizarre as it is extraordinary. Alberto Sordi, Melina Mercouri, Vittorio Gassman, Anouk Aimee, Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine even Jimmy Durante and Renato Rascel. The interconnecting vignettes have an inexorable point of reference. The end of the world. The film, at times, appears to be a "divertimento" that builds to something apocalyptic and finishes in a hurried fizzling note, but it is in fact a superb exercise playing wittily with the fear of our ultimate and unavoidable demise. Among the many delights that the film offers there is a superlative performance by Alberto Sordi in one the most repellent characters in his long collection of repellent characters. A strange, funny, unsettling and fascinating film.

All-star disaster

[gridoon2024 · 3/10 · 23 December 2019]

"Il Giudizio Universale" is like one of those Hollywood or international co-productions (say, "Casino Royale 1967") which gather a lot of big names in the cast and think that's enough for the viewers - they don't need to give them anything to do. A promising premise (loud God-like voice from the sky announces that the Final Judgment will start....tonight at 18:00) is first botched, then abandoned altogether (to give you an idea, the funniest gag is when the voice adresses - in Italian - a man in Blackpool, he says "Excuse me, do you speak English?", and the voice responds "No"). Disjointed, pointless, plotless, and unfunny. * out of 4.

The Maestro Created a Masterpiece, Why Doesn't the World Know?

[info-627-664439 · 10/10 · 13 June 2013]

This film took me quite by surprise at how good it was considering the brief but otherwise non-existent synopsis given for it on its selling page. The great director, after giving the world "Two Women" in 1960 together with his brilliant script collaborator Cesare Zavatina had the idea to show the world how its folly of the "Last Judgment" would play out if we could let our minds get a glimpse of how it would likely play back to us. Produced and distributed by Dino De Laurentiis, the cast is letter perfect with some actors and actresses, probably the whole cast, hitting the target with some scathingly brilliant performances. Everything about is grandiose, and at times, touching and sardonic and joyful. (Special standout of the actors is Melina Mercouri, but it is hard to not want to mention others). I wish I knew why this film is so overlooked? As the opening suggests, it is depicting a painting in a museum. Is it doomed because at the time of its making (1961) the black and white problem was less politically correct than today. Must we hide our sins? What a shame. Thankfully de Sica is responsible for "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" and "Marriage, Italian Style" and the oversight of "The Last Judgment" robs him of less.