Translations: Italian Films with US Adapted Titles

Mignon Has Come To Stay, says the English title, but the original Italian title sounds the other way round: Mignon è partita, Mignon has left!

English title: Blood Feud.

Original Italian title: Fatto di sangue fra due uomini per causa di una vedova - si sospettano moventi politici, literally "Act of blood (violence) between two men because of a widow - political motives are suspected".

Not only the English title is way shorter, but a single "act" becomes a "feud", and almost everything else is lost in translation: the two men, the widow, politics...!

BTW, extremely long, and ironic, film titles are sort of a trademark of director Lina Wertmüller.

English title: The Easy Life, which by the way evokes "The Sweet Life", literal translation of another famous Italian movie, "La dolce vita", released two years before.

But, the original Italian title is about unsafe driving!: Il sorpasso, literally "The overtaking".

In this scene, Vittorio Gassman makes the hand gesture of the horns, meaning "You are a cuckold", while he is overtaking another car.

English title: Big Deal on Madonna Street.

Original title: I soliti ignoti, "The usual unknown persons", as the police call unidentified criminals, also to refer to usual suspects.

Aother Lina Wertmüller's film.

Short English title: Swept Away.

Original Italian title: Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto, which is considerably longer!, and translates to the long English title "Swept away... by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August".

English title: Don't Tell.

Original Italian title: La bestia nel cuore, "The beast in the heart".

English title: The Leopard.

Original Italian title: Il gattopardo. Literally, it refers to some big cats similar to the leopard, like the ocelot and other big cats. More importantly, after the success of the movie and of the novel the film is based on, "gattopardo" is used in a figurative sense, meaning someone who seemingly adapts to new circumstances... in order to stay in power anyway, like the noble in the story. "In order for everything to stay the same, everything must change" is a key quote from this movie.

An ocelot, or "gattopardo"


So, if we talk about a "gattopardo", or use the adjective "gattopardesco", it usually is not about a big cat, but about someone who pretends who change things only in order for them to remain the same!

Ciao, Professore!, the USA title, is Italian for Hi, Teacher!, but the original Italian title is completely different: Io speriamo che me la cavo, an ungrammatical sentence by a child at school, meaning something like I... we hope that I get by.

English title: White Collar Blues.

Original Italian title: Fantozzi, a family name that is a wordplay too, a mocking variant of "Fantocci", Italian for "Stooges" or "Dummies".
After the success of the movie, the name "Fantozzi" is used as a synonym of any comedic, clumsy loser, and a white-collar underdog.

English title: For Love and Gold.

Original Italian title: L'armata Brancaleone, "The Brancaleone army".
After the success of the movie, the expression "armata Brancaleone" is used to mean any ragtag legion like the one whose adventures are told in this film.

English title: The Hawks and the Sparrows.

Original Italian title: Uccellacci e uccellini, that literally is "Bad birds and little birds".
Anyway, the meaning is not very far, and in the movie a story is told about hawks and sparrows.

Besides, a talking bird is one of the main characters, but it is a crow.

English title: Lulu the Tool

Original Italian title: La classe operaia va in paradiso, literally "The working class goes to Heaven".

English title: The Fascist

Original Italian title: Il federale. In Mussolini's Italy, "il federale" was the local secretary of the Fascist party, quite an important person at the time, not any Fascist.

US title: Viva l'Italia!, which is Italian for "Long live Italy".

Original Italian title: I nuovi mostri, meaning "The new monsters".

A different kettle of fish! :D

English title: Be Sick... It's Free, but it's also known as "The Family Doctor", which is much closer to the Italian title Il medico della mutua. However, "Be Sick... It's Free" is spot on! In the Sixties and in the Seventis, before the National Health Service became free for virtually everybody, "il medico della mutua" was the General Practioner paid by the "mutua", the mutual health insurance schemes for workers and their families. So, the GP had become actually free for most people, anyway, as most people had health insurance.