A Brilliant Conflict

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This movie is filmed in Forza D'Agro, Sicily which just happens to be my Grandmothers town, still as gorgeous today as it was back then!! Perched on a mountain very close to the sea. My great grandfather is cast as an extra in the background and appears a few times, i never met him so its great to see him! So you might call me bias, but to me it has beautiful vistas, beautiful actors majestic panoramas and these type of movies are like snippets in time and are nostalgic, lite hearted and fun to watch..... Sublime old film. Angie Dickinson is at her most beautiful in this film, at least I think so anyway. P.S I found a DVD copy of this at scooter movies.

Jessica is an American lady (Angie Dickenson) who has inexplicably come to a small Italian town to be their midwife. What is a super-hot American doing there?! And what is the town to do? All the men spend all their time lusting after her and the women spend all their time complaining that their men are lusting after sweet Jessica. The town priest (inexplicably played by the French actor, Maurice Chevalier) tries to get everyone to accept Jessica--but it looks like it's an impossible task."Jessica" is a comedy that never really hits the mark--and its script clearly could have used a lot more work before it was filmed. As a comedy, it was supposed to be funny but it wasn't. Sadly, it was just pretty dull and it isn't particularly charming. As a result, the film just drags despite nice scenery.

Great scenery and great girls! Pity Angie comes in about 3rd in the "glamour stakes"! It is a light-hearted romp though and is mildly entertaining. Chevalier does his usual bit in his usual style-talking to himself,the audience,his jeep,his god and his congregation,with a big cheesy grin(the old ,"I'm glad I'm not young anymore"routine. Oh golly,I've got to write more lines!How about,Angie's love interest,the titled "heavy" of the film,tortured by the memory of his wife's execution by the Nazis,has little more than a walk on,walk off role.I guess he is there to ensure a happy ending. Angie doesn't do to bad,from village midwife to grand dame in the château-in less than a year.Beats having the stuffing knocked out of you by a demented Michael Caine!

The basic plot line is that Jessica (Angie Dickinson), who is new in a small Italian village, and is working as a midwife, frightens the town's women. They fear she will steal their husbands, as she is presented as being amazingly alluring to all the men. The main problem with this premise, at least from a man's point of view, is that Silva Koscina, who plays one of the wives, is far more attractive, both facially and overall physically, than Angie Dickinson. (Perhaps the Italian men were mesmerized by Ms. Dickinson's blonde hair.) The women are presented as getting together and planning to deny their husbands sex, in order to prevent pregnancies and therefore drive the midwife out of town. The plots of comedies are expected to be kind of dumb, but this one really takes the cake: they deny both their husbands and themselves any sex, because they are jealous of a new woman? How many women do you know who would react that way? Three stars out of ten, and while I'm at it, Maurice Chevalier really can't sing, can he?