Scent of a Woman   

By Robert Lane

The inspiration for the wildly successful film featuring Al Pacino in his Academy Award-winning performance, this 1974 Italian original shares some of the same quiet, melancholy pathos and dark comic moments of its more famous counterpart. Vittorio Gassman plays a blind and bitter army officer who embarks on a decadent and self-destructive journey across Italy with a young private (Alessandro Momo) reluctantly in tow. The film, directed by Dino Risi, occasionally engages in gallows humor as it traces the path of a man who feels he has nothing to live for other than the fleeting remembrances of women, and who finally realizes the worth in loyalty and true camaraderie. This is an opportunity to see a film that not only stands well on its own but that provided the basis for its well-loved American counterpart.

Academy Awards

Scent of a Woman received Academy Awards nominations for Writing (Best Screenplay adapted from other material; Ruggero Maccari, Dino Risi) and Foreign Language Film Award).

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