Night Full of Rain, A (DVD)

Lizzy (Candice Bergen), a liberated American photographer, falls for narrow-minded journalist Paolo (Giancarlo Giannini). Then finds she can't live with him or without him. Bergen (Murphy Brown) and Giannini (Seven Beauties) take both comic and fierce battle stations in this colorful excursion into the male/female combat zone. So what if the world, as we learn from the TV in Lizzy and Paolo's luxurious apartment, is crashing around their ears; this is WAR! Writer/director Lina Wertmuller relied on spontaneity and improvisation in making A Night Full of Rain, her first film in English. Giannini, star of Wertmuller's groundbreaking Swept Away and Seven Beauties, was familiar with the technique, Bergen wasn't. But it worked splendidly. "Bergen gives one of the warmest and most characterful performances of her career," the Los Angeles Times hailed. When it rains, this film's two stars pour it on!

• art