Figure 1.-- Here we see Lucca dressed for school wearing a blue smock over short pants, black ankle socks, black shoes, and a beret The smock and bow look reasonably authentic, but I am not sure how many Italian boys wore berets.

This film is an international production. Entertaining film about eldely English women interned by the Italians as enemy aliens during World War II. Mussolini staid out of the War until France was largely defeated and then declared war on Btitain and France to get a share of the spoils. It is losely based on actual events. Eventually American women are also interned, one of who is Cher playing a racy Jewish woman. The ladies are helped by a boy nammed Lucca with a British father and an unmarried Italian mother. He grows up in Italy and is costumed in school smocks and suspender shorts. He is sent for a while to a NAZI school in Austria. I'm not sure if that is depicted, a I didn't see the beginning of the film. He was apparently unhsppy there. Lucca appear back in Italy wearing a knickers suit and sets out to assist the English ladies who have been interned. He eventually runs off to h=join the Fesistance. At the end of the film he reappears with the British Army. The ladies of course are delighted to see him and admire his new uniform.He is very nicely played by Brad Wallace.

Filmology

This film is an international production. The director is Franco Zeffirelli. The story is based on actual fact but takes quite a few liberties with the actual historical personages involved. I'm not sure about the nationality of the film. Zeffirelli is of course an Italian director. The cast is mostly British and the dialogue is in English. I/m not sure about the production company. the intended audience is English-speaking. Maybe we could say that the film is "Italo-British"? Of course this brings us to the question of how to define the nationality of a film, not an easy question to answer in toiday's increasingly interconnected world. I supose the nationality of the production company must be a major factor.

Setting

'Tea wiuth Musolini' was filmed mostly in Florence and the Tuscan hill country and was set in the years leading up and during World War II.

Cast

The film had a star-studded British and American cast including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, Joan Plowright, and Cher. The illegitimate boy Lucca is played as an 8-year-old by Charlie Lucas and as a teenager (about 16) by Baird Wallace. Both do a fine job. The film has great charm and poignancy as well as a hilarious performance by Maggie Smith as the snobbish but indomitable widow of the British ambassador to Italy in the 1930s, Lady Hester Random. Cher plays a racy Jewish American woman.

Plot

Entertaining film about eldely English women interned by the Italians as enemy aliens during World War II. It is set in the British expatriot community in Florence, Italy. The English love Italy, as least before World War II. Now they all go to the Canary Islands and other Spanish resort areas. This film deals with the community of expatriate English women (known as the "Scorpioni") who lived in Italy during the 1930s, refused to leave when World War II was imminent, and were ultimately trapped and mistreated under Mussolini's Fascist dictatorship. The ladies before the War look after the Italian boy named Luca. He is the illegitimate son of a local English business man. His father has money does not look after the boy. His mother has recently died. The British businesman's secretary is British and she takes it upon herself to look after Luca. She and her friends look after him and become his surrogate parents. Times change and the boys father send him to a school in Austria which is subsequenly taken over by the NAZIS in the Anschluss. Mussolini stayed out of the War until France was largely defeated and then declared war on Btitain and France to get a share of the spoils. It is losely based on actual events. When Luca returns from Austria he is now a teenager. Lucca appear back in Italy wearing a knickers suit. He discoveres the British ladies interned and sets out to assuist them. He helps to improve their situation. There is also help from an American lady. Eventually after Pearl Harbor and America entered the War, American women were also interned, one of who is Cher playing a racy Jewish woman. After the War breaks out Lucca helps the ladies that had helped him and eventually joins the Ressistance. He then helps the Cher chracter, who he has fallen in love with, escape just as she is about to be killed or sent to a concentration camp. Luca works with the Resistance and eventually ha to run off and join it in the hills. A few years pass. The Allies invade Italy. Luca returns now grown up as an interpretator for the British Army. This is joy to them all because his father and the ladies had wanted him to be an' English Cultured Gentleman' Now dressed in British Military uniform he had become.

Figure 2.-- Here we see Lucca at a picnic wearing short pants with suspenders, a white shirt, white ankle socks, and sandals. At right is Cher with whom he develops a infatuation.

Costuming

He grows up in Italy and is costumed in school smocks and suspender shorts. As a young boy, Lucca, an illegitimate child, is cared for and brought up by one of the English ladies living in Florence, Mary Wallace. We see him dressed for school wearing a blue smock over short pants, black ankle socks, black shoes, and a beret (figure 1). We also see Lucca at a picnic wearing short pants with suspenders, a white shirt, white ankle socks, and sandals (figure 2). Later when Lucca comes back from Austria as a teenager about 15 or 16 years old he wears knickers. As a teenager he wears various outfits, but usually full cut gray knickers with blue and gray argyle socks, a coat-sweater with shawl collar, and a checked tweed flat cap. Occasionally, when he is dressed up for a formal occasion, he wears a long pants suit, but his normal teenage dress, especially for bicycling, is knickers and knee-length argyle socks. The knickers perhaps show the influence of his German experience, because such knickers were fairly popular in Germany before and during World War II, but were also worn by older Italian boys. As the war progresses Lucca is reduced to rags, but at the end has been adopted by the British army as a translator and wears a British army uniform of which he is very proud.

Created: December 21, 2003
Last updated: 7:15 AM 6/28/2012