For a long time, I couldn't tell Elsa Martinelli from
Laura Antonelli, and it's not just because they both
rhyme with Vincent Minnelli.
In 1957, Elsa Martinelli played a discovered starlet
named Maria Antonelli in Four Girls in Town,
which is an interesting slice of Universal Pictures
history if not a particularly good movie. Then, of
course, she appeared in the famous 1960 lesbian
vampire film Blood and Roses (aka Et Mourir de
plaisir or Il Sangue e la rosa). So you knew that
she was really cool. And then she showed up as
John Wayne's girlfriend in the African western
Hatari! (1962), and it really seemed ridiculous
that a young, hip European beauty would actually
fall for the geezerly Duke Wayne (but then I think
Wayne and his usual band of aging misfits were
drunk in Tanzania). Then she showed up in Candy
(1968) and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
(1969), and you knew the world was right again.
And, in between there somewhere, she appeared
in the Eddie Constantine-Henry Silva crime thriller
Hail, Mafia (1965), which I'm actually gonna have
to sit down and watch some day. Anyway, she was
cute, worked as a fashion model, and was on the
cover a Life magazine a couple of times, so she
deserves a post here at Starlet Showcase.
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