A Special Day (1977)

Sophia Loren: Antonietta Taberi

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Gabriele : As they say, "Tidiness is the virtue of a mediocre mind."

  Antonietta : Then I'm a genius.

• Antonietta : What is it you have against him?

  Caretaker : I say this for your own good. Certain people are bad for your name. I didn't want to say it... but that one from the sixth is a wart, a traitor... an antifascist. In short, a bastard.

• Antonietta : Why are you laughing?

  Gabriele : Just because - life is made up of so many different moments, and sometimes I get this urge to laugh - just like that, like a sneeze.

• Gabriele : [after looking at a photo album of Mussolini]  They say he rides a horse to exhaustion every morning and a woman every night. Poor horses. Poor women!

  Antonietta : They say a lot of things about him.

• Gabriele : [reading a Mussolini quote]  "Genius is incompatible with the physiology and psyche of the female and is always strictly masculine." You agree?

  Antonietta : Of course I agree. Why? Aren't the history books always full of men?

  Gabriele : Sure. Maybe too full. There's no room for anyone else. Least of all women.

  Antonietta : You know, you're a tough one to figure out.

  Gabriele : My mother, for example, wasn't male, but she was a genius. She wrote. She painted. She worked as a bookkeeper and supported the family, not my father. She made all the decisions. The only decision my father ever made was to walk out on us. She was a great woman, but she couldn't hold on to her husband. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

• Antonietta : Maria Luì, get up. You'd keep even Hitler waiting.

• Arnaldo Taberi : [singing]  Those Serbs would grab Dalmatia but we won't let that pass, If they try to take it we'll kick 'em in the ass...

  Antonietta : You and your filthy language!

  Arnaldo Taberi : It's the patriotic song we learned for the parade.

  Antonietta : It's still vulgar.

• Antonietta : A family only gets one mother. This family needs at least three. One to clean the rooms. One to handle the kitchen. And one to lie in bed all day. I could be that one.

  [singing] 

  Antonietta : Mamma, My song wings its way to you alone, Mamma, You'll be with me, You'll never again be alone.

• Antonietta : He's such a decent man. He can't be an antifascist.

  Caretaker : Decency has nothing to do with it. I know a thief who plied his trade in this very building. Now he's an officer in the army. So what if a man's a scoundrel? What matters is whether he's faithful to the Party. That's the important thing, right?

• Antonietta : There are lots of times when I feel humiliated too. Treated like a nobody. My husband doesn't talk to me. He orders me around, day - and night. We haven't laughed together since we were engaged. He does his laughing elsewhere now, with other women.

  Gabriele : You mean he's unfaithful? You seemed so secure and happy.

  Antonietta : "Faithful" - to the fatherland. You know those places where men go and pay for women? They know him better there than in his own office.

• Antonietta : Emanuele. Emanuele! Get up. It's late.

  Emanuele Taberi : She's busting my balls at 5:00 a.m.!

  Antonietta : Actually, it's close to 6:00.

  Emanuele Taberi : 6:00? Why didn't you wake me up earlier?

  Antonietta : This is the third time I've tried.

• Antonietta : Don't come home so late next time.

  Emanuele Taberi : Can't a man play cards with his friends anymore?

  Antonietta : Right. "Friends."

• Gabriele : I'm a bachelor.

  Antonietta : Ah, a bachelor.

  Gabriele : Yes.

  Antonietta : Then, you pay the bachelor tax.

  Gabriele : That's right. You'd think loneliness was some kind of luxury.

• Antonietta : You know, I crossed paths with him once, four years ago, face to face.

  Gabriele : Really? Where?

  Antonietta : Villa Borghese. He was on horseback. I stopped and he glanced my way as he galloped by. It was like a fire flared up inside me. Mind you, my arms were full of groceries. My legs turned to jelly, everything started spinning around me, and I fell to the ground in a faint.

  Gabriele : From one glance as he galloped by?

  Antonietta : Yeah. Some passers-by helped me up and I managed to get on the streetcar.

• Emanuele Taberi : A cold dinner. Didn't do a thing all day, did you?

  Antonietta : Wasn't it a national holiday?

  Emanuele Taberi : And you stayed home in bed.

• Emanuele Taberi : Antoniè, a day like today calls for a celebration and if we have a seventh we'll call him Adolf.

  [spanks Antonietta on the behind] 

  Antonietta : No, not tonight.

  Emanuele Taberi : Just hurry up and come to bed. We'll discuss it then.

• Antonietta : Give Littorio his cod liver oil.

• Gabriele : What did she say about me?

  Antonietta : About you? Nothing. Why? What do you think she said?

  Gabriele : I'm generally her favorite topic - - after her late husband, that is. In his death throes he refused last rites and asked to be buried in his fascist black shirt.

  Antonietta : He was a great man, a true fascist. He wasn't a naysayer or one of those - subversives.

  Gabriele : Like me, right? So she did tell you.

• Gabriele : So I tried to bluff by showing them a medical certificate stating I wasn't a homosexual, that I was a normal man.

  Antonietta : Did they believe you?

  Gabriele : Are you kidding? It only made things worse. That was a bad move. If you're not a homosexual, you don't walk around with a certificate to that effect.

• Antonietta : It's funny, I don't feel guilty at all. Just the opposite. It was never like that with him. I never thought it could be like that. What about you?

  Gabriele : The way I am doesn't mean I can't make love to a woman. It's different. It was very nice... but it doesn't change anything.