''A Wrong Way to Love'' ( it, Amarsi male) is a 1969 Italian drama film. It was directed by Fernando Di Leo. It stars Nieves Navarro, Gianni Macchia, Micaela Pignatelli, Lucio Dalla, and Lea Lander.''Amarsi male'' in Cinema.theiapolis.com
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Production

The female lead actress initially chosen was

Lucia Bosè Lucia Bosè (28 January 1931 – 23 March 2020) was an Italian actress. Life and career Lucia Bosè was born in Milan to Francesca Borloni and Domenico Bosè. After a number of years working in a bakery, Pasticceria Galli, in her native city, ...

, later replaced by Pier Angeli and ultimately by Nieves Navarro.Manlio Gomarasca, ''Amarsi male'', in ''Calibro 9: Il cinema di Ferdinando Di Leo'', Nocturno Dossier, Cinemabis Communication, page 52. The singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla was given a comical sidekick role.Paolo Mereghetti, ''Amarsi male'', in ''Il Mereghetti - Dizionario dei film 2006'', Baldini & Castoldi, page 112. The male protagonist's surname, Tessari, is a Di Leo's homage to his real life friend

Duccio Tessari Duccio Tessari (11 October 1926 – 6 September 1994) was an Italian director, screenwriter and actor, considered one of the fathers of Spaghetti Westerns. Born in Genoa, Tessari started in the fifties as documentarist and as screenwriter of pe ...

. The best known actor in the cast,

Gary Merrill Gary Fred Merrill (August 2, 1915 – March 5, 1990) was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starr ...

, has only a supporting role. The film has cameos of Giancarlo Cobelli and

Maria Monti Maria Monti (born 1935 in Milan) is an Italian film actress, singer and theatre artist. Entering film in 1962 in '' Canzoni a tempo di twist'' she made nearly 30 film appearances between 1962 and 2002. In 1971 she appeared in Sergio Leone's '' ...

, as two small-theater performers. The director Di Leo appears uncredited as a client in a brothel.

Reception

The film was a box office failure; in 1972 it was re-released under the title ''Brucia amore brucia'', a reference the previous Di Leo's film, '' Brucia, ragazzo, brucia'', which had been a hit, but still failed to be profitable. The film has been generally badly received by critics. In his analysis of the film,

Paolo Mereghetti Paolo Mereghetti (born 28 September 1949) is an Italian film critic. Born in Milan, Mereghetti graduated in philosophy with a thesis about Orson Welles.Giorgio Dell’Arti, Massimo Parrini. "Mereghetti, Paolo". ''Catalogo dei viventi''. Marsilio ...

described it as an attempt to describe the social turmoil of the late 1960s, which falls into "the clichés of melodrama". According to Manlio Gomarasca, the film is a "soulless shell", formally very good, even exceeding the previous Di Leo's films, but empty in its contents. Gomarasca identifies as the main reason for the failure of the film the lack of courage in its erotic and social aspects, probably a result of the censorship issues Di Leo had suffered with his previous film ''Brucia, ragazzo, brucia''.

References

External links

* 1969 films 1960s Italian-language films 1969 drama films Italian drama films 1960s Italian films {{1960s-Italy-film-stub