Made in Italy

Nanni Loy directed Made in Italy (released in France as À l'italienne), a 1965 Italian-French comedy. It tells no single story; it is an anthology of sketches that sets out Italian customs and habits of behaviour in short episodes. Running 125 minutes, it also stands out for gathering a large share of the era's best-known Italian performers.

The episodes fall into five groups: customs and traditions, women, work, the citizen with the state and the church, and the family. Between the groups, an interlude shows four workers on a flight to Stockholm, behaving as "typical Italians" among sober Swedish passengers. Filming took place in Rome, Amalfi, Ravello, Matera, Naples, Venice, Turin and Florence, as well as Sicily and rural Italy. The cast includes Alberto Sordi, Lando Buzzanca, Walter Chiari, Lea Massari, Anna Magnani, Peppino De Filippo, Virna Lisi, Catherine Spaak and Sylva Koscina, with Milena Vukotic, Nino Castelnuovo and Lars Bloch also among the players.

Loy wrote the screenplay with Ruggero Maccari and Ettore Scola. Aldo Fabrizi, Aldo Giuffrè, Marina Berti, Claudio Gora and Mario Pisu also appear in the long cast list. Thanks to its many episodes, the film works as a social album of mid-1960s Italy.