
Acting
Giovanni Grasso
Born — Died
1888-11-11 — 1963-05-03
Place of birth
Catania, Italy
Known for
Acting
Credits
58 titles
Known for
6.8Exiled from the court of Spain, Don Salluste, the chief of police, wants to take revenge on the Queen. One day he meets Ruy Blas, a young student who happens to be a lookalike of Don Cesar, his nephew. Salluste disguises Ruy Blas and presents him as Don Cesar. It doesn't take long before Ruy Blas, intelligent, virtuous and generous as he is becomes popular and the Queen, who has fallen in love with him, appoints him Prime Minister. All seems for the best in the best of worlds but Salluste has not forgotten his revenge, far from that ...
The Queen's Lover
1948
8.5In a small provincial Italian town, a fifteen-year-old boy meets and falls in love with a girl.
The Age of Indiscretion
1953
5.2A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.
Times Gone By
1952
7.8Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.
Difficult Years
1948
6.5During a police raid at Villa Borghese, the agent, a widower named Antonio Caccavallo, stays to get better acquainted with the young Carolina.
Toto and Carolina
1955
6.6When Passaguai family patriarch Giuseppe (Fabrizi) decides to take advantage of a corporate discount to bring his wife (Ninchi) and children to spend a Sunday at the beach of Fiumicino, a series of troubles begins for everyone, in the form of a comic nightmare.
La famiglia Passaguai
1951
Film credits
1950s · 20 titles
8.5In a small provincial Italian town, a fifteen-year-old boy meets and falls in love with a girl.
The Age of Indiscretion
1953
5.2A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.
Times Gone By
1952
6.5During a police raid at Villa Borghese, the agent, a widower named Antonio Caccavallo, stays to get better acquainted with the young Carolina.
Toto and Carolina
1955
6.6When Passaguai family patriarch Giuseppe (Fabrizi) decides to take advantage of a corporate discount to bring his wife (Ninchi) and children to spend a Sunday at the beach of Fiumicino, a series of troubles begins for everyone, in the form of a comic nightmare.
La famiglia Passaguai
1951
6.4A film made up of four episodes: a jar repairer gets trapped in a vat because of his hunch; a young unmarried mother is forced to beg to buy herself a fan; Rosario Chiarchiaro appears before a law court for casting spells; the discomfort of an overtight jacket gives a wedding witness the strength to persuade the bridegroom's reluctant parents to bless his union.
Of Life and Love
1954
9.0A comedy with lots of Neapolitan songs and shots of the Bay of Naples finds Maria Morelli unable to marry her singing sailor/lover, Giacomo because her father, Don Salvatdore Morelli objects. She can't elope because her father has an heart ailment and uses it to hold Maria. Giacomo misunderstands and takes off on a global singing tour.
Melody of Love
1952
9.0A humble clerk is forced to take on debts to cure his mother.
Onore e sangue
1957
6.1A disguised thief talks himself into a countryside class fight immediately after WWII.
Welcome Reverend!
1950
9.0An Italian Air Force officer is pursued and captured by the Allied police and is charged with the bombing of a hospital ship. Through the efforts of his sweetheart, a witness is found who proves the bombing was not intentional but the result of being hit by enemy fire. A four-way romantic involvement is also part of the mix that includes an Allied officer and Viennse beauty Lida. The latter was once in love with the accused and has a child by him.
Fugitive in Trieste
1952
6.5Saverio Luparello is the manager of Sicilian baron Occipinti's estate. The cunning greedy man intentionally lets the land turn into a wasteland, hoping that his employer, discouraged by its low returns, will sell his earth to him for next to nothing. His plans are thwarted by a share cropper, Diego Costa, who farms his lot zealously and to good results.
The Fighting Men
1950
6.3The daughter of Signor Carloni is about to take her first communion. A problem arises when the dressmaker spends too much time working on the girl's communion frock.
First Communion
1950
5.8A Tuscan peasant girl in the 13th century overcomes sexual harassment, and the skepticism of her fellow citizens, as she saves plague victims, works miracles, and eventually becomes a saint.
Margaret of Cortona
1950
6.8A Sicilian professor who moves to Rome gets lost in the maze of Roman ministries and gives in to corruption.
Easy Years
1953
5.8Luisa Galli moves to Rome in search of a respectable job, but instead just finds a job as a waitress for the lawyer Giorgi.
In amore si pecca in due
1954
6.5Back from the war, a man discovers that his daughter has died and his wife has left their house. He searches for the girlfriend of a fellow soldier and falls for her.
Gli innocenti pagano
1952
6.0No synopsis available yet.
Immortal Melodies
1952
7.0Robert and his fiancée Lucienne were due to go on vacation together to a tented village in Sicily. Robert is forced to postpone his trip and only joins Lucienne a few days later, taking advantage of the departure of a following group. During the train journey, he befriends Thérèse, a young Sicilian living in Paris, who wants to make a pilgrimage to the land of her ancestors. Lucienne is away from the camp when Robert arrives, so he can continue to see Thérèse, and little by little they discover that they love each other. When Lucienne returns, an explanation and reconciliation take place, then Robert changes his mind and, with the vacations over, leaves Lucienne alone to live in Sicily with Thérèse, who wants to stay in her family's homeland.
Magic Village
1955
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Il principe ribelle
1950
8.0No synopsis available yet.
Serenata tragica
1951
9.0"Spy Heart" - A fisherman is seduced by a young spy who has helped his brother, blind from birth, to get a job as a singer on the radio. But the young man is not satisfied with that relationship and regrets the girlfriend he had. A great emotion returns the sight to the brother and the fisherman, moved and repentant, returns to his ancient love.
Cuore di spia
1953
1940s · 23 titles
6.8Exiled from the court of Spain, Don Salluste, the chief of police, wants to take revenge on the Queen. One day he meets Ruy Blas, a young student who happens to be a lookalike of Don Cesar, his nephew. Salluste disguises Ruy Blas and presents him as Don Cesar. It doesn't take long before Ruy Blas, intelligent, virtuous and generous as he is becomes popular and the Queen, who has fallen in love with him, appoints him Prime Minister. All seems for the best in the best of worlds but Salluste has not forgotten his revenge, far from that ...
The Queen's Lover
1948
7.8Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.
Difficult Years
1948
6.8Episodic film with flashbacks about the lives of some sick and infirm people travelling on the same train, making a pilgrimage to the shine of Our Lady of Loreto.
The Gates of Heaven
1945
NRNo synopsis available yet.
La figlia del peccato
1949
9.0A young farmer, with a magnificent voice, receives an invitation to present himself in a large theater to be hired. In reality, the invitation is a joke made by his cousin.
I Live as I Please
1942
8.5After having been captured in a Crimea during a failed attempt to flee overseas, Leo returns in Petersburg for Kira.
We the Living, Part Two
1942
5.9The explorer Smith leaves with Laura, a beautiful but naive girl, in search of Professor Berti, who mysteriously disappeared in Africa in the midst of one of his researches.
Two Hearts Against the Beast
1943
10.0Comedy Western
Il fanciullo del West
1942
7.3In Barcelona, in 1650, Count Don Cesare di Bazan tries to foil, with the help of an actress, a plot hatched against the king by the French ambassador.
Don Cesare of Bazan
1942
No synopsis available yet.
Madrid de mis sueños
1942
No synopsis available yet.
Chi l'ha visto?
1945
9.0In a village, rumours spread that a treasure is hidden nearby. To finance the search, a farmer sells a 14th-century painting of the Madonna, leaving it with a master restorer. The farmer's daughter, who felt a particular veneration for the sacred image, goes to the restorer's workshop to see the painting of the Madonna again and falls asleep in front of it. While the girl is asleep, the restorer begins to paint her portrait, which he will title "Sleeping Girl." In the end, the girl and the painter will marry and be able to keep the painting with them.
Ragazza che dorme
1941
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Il segreto di Villa Paradiso
1940
8.3At 18, the beautiful and intelligent Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out.
We the Living, Part One
1942
6.0The story of the most infamous bandit in Romagna, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor.
Il passatore
1947
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Attendimi - Sono io l'assassino
1949
10.0No synopsis available yet.
All'ombra della gloria
1945
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Il vetturale del San Gottardo
1941
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Rondini in volo
1949
No synopsis available yet.
Mare
1940
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Buongiorno, Madrid!
1943
9.0No synopsis available yet.
The Great Dawn
1947
No synopsis available yet.
Vento d'Africa
1949
1930s · 9 titles
7.0Piccolo Hotel (aka Small Hotel) uses the titular establishment to weave together a vast tapestry of subplots, a la Grand Hotel. The guests include a domineering mother (Lola Braccini), her petulant daughter (Bianca Doria) and the daughter's gigolo boyfriend (Guido Notari). Also on hand is a worldly vamp (Laura Nucci) who also falls for the boyfriend, and the chronic-gambler son (Andrea Checchi) of the hotel's self-sacrificing landlady (Emma Grammatica). Though the film is set in Budapest, the characters are more Mediterranean than mittel-European. Piccolo Hotel was one of the entries in the Vienna Biennial Film Festival.
Small Hotel
1939
8.0Two partners return from the war to find their coffee plantation in the hands of an unscrupulous overseer. One is attracted to an exotic native girl that the overseer has at the plantation.
Under the Southern Cross
1938
4.5A few months before the Ethiopian war. The Abyssinian army lays siege to a fort where the leaders of the tribes loyal to the Italians have taken refuge. The commander of the fort must hold out, and the situation is saved by the heroism of a sergeant who turns the tide of battle with the defeat of the Abyssinians.
Sentinels of Bronze
1937
6.2A marginal group celebrates Christmas Eve singing and dancing in the street while a millionaire celebrates the feast offering a great dinner to his friends. The millionaire receives a telegram from his sister in America who announces her visit after more than twenty years without seeing each other…
Los hijos de la noche
1939
9.0Two different couples on blind dates get mixed up when they pick the same location to meet.
The Operator
1932
5.2Called to perform at the Scala, a young baritone begins a transatlantic romance with a famous pianist. The singer, having been skewered by a critic after his last performance in Milan, attempts to find a way to win over the audience and the critics, while wooing his love interest.
Retroscena
1939
Directed by Amleto Palermi
Port
1934
8.0No synopsis available yet.
Terra di nessuno
1939
8.0During the Ethiopian war, thirteen boys embark clandestinely on a merchant ship bound for Africa. Following the shipwreck, they are castaway on a desert island...
The Little Adventurers
1939
1920s · 2 titles
1910s · 3 titles
7.0Paolina is the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Vallenza, and lives as a beggar. She meets with Nunzio, a blind man who plays violin, exploited by his stepfather, and the two fall in love. The old Duke, remorsing, tries to find his daughter but he doesn't manage and leaves everything to his latest concubine, Livia, while Nunzio and Paolina will live in misery. The only copy of this film was destroyed in World War Two
Lost in the Dark
1914
A countryside adventure: two siblings, ill at ease in a subordinate social position, challenge the owner Alessandro; Giuseppe doesn’t want to work for him, while Carmela wants to force him to love her. However, class conflict isn’t hidden by emotions and characters.
Un amore selvaggio
1912
7.0A man sentenced to life imprisonment who escaped from prison, commits suicide so as not to be an obstacle for his wife and daughter, who had built a new life.
Muerte civil
1910



