Rating: 
Summary: Women of courage.....
Review: Sophia Loren was apparently well acquainted with war and hunger. When TWO WOMEN was released, the film magazines depicted her as having experienced the horrors of war first hand as a young Italian girl during WWII. Like Audrey Hepburn, she was purported to have been saved from starvation by the advancing Allies. TWO WOMEN was released about 15 years after WWII. The film storyline follows the day-to-day struggles of a young mother and her teenage daughter who are refugees fleeing the violence of the war brought to their Italian village during WWII. Fleeing to a place of safety, the two endure many hardships. The film does not include gratuitous violence, but it does not pull any punches either. Many of the scenes are horrifying, or at least they were to me in the 1960s. In one scene women are raped by a gang of deserters from the Italian army. I was very young when I saw this film, but I cannot recall a more horrific scene even though the actual act of rape is not shown. In another scene, women who have betrayed their fellow villagers are punished in a way that I still find shocking--although very Italian (the Nazis would have shot them!!). Unfortunatley, the horrors shown in this film have always been and apparently always will be commonplace wherever men are fighting. The title of the film TWO WOMEN comes from the "coming of age" of the young girl who must deal with the rough existence of her world gone mad. This film is about the moral courage of women and as it was released at the beginning of the resurgence of the women's movment it was incredibly salient.
Rating: 
Summary: fine war-time drama
Review: Sophia Loren's international breakthrough dramatic role, TWO WOMEN is a heart-rending story of a mother and daughter clinging to life and decency in war-torn Italy. A young widow (Sophia Loren) leaves her grocery store in San Lorenz in the hands of her lover. She takes herself and her teenage daughter to her hometown to flee the relentless German bombing, many many miles away. After this arduous journey she falls in love with a shy, unassuming student, but this only marks the beginning of a trail marked with sadness and tragedy. Very shocking, even by today's standards. This 1960 Italian film deals with gang-rape, child molestation and is quite violent. Directed by Vittorio De Sica and also starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Eleanora Brown.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy - EXTREMELY poor quality recording
Review: The film and Sofia Loren's performance are 5 stars. The video quality is 0 stars. I expected less than perfect quality based on the previous reviews, but thought I would take a chance for 4.99. Sorry I did - I was unprepared for just how bad this is. Faces are just blurs. It doesn't track right in my VCR. It was poorly recorded in EP mode. What a waste - this film deserves better. Don't buy this - the "Madacy Music Group Inc." manufactured and distributed this video and don't deserve the profits. Included with the video is a brochure of other "Hollywood Classics" they have given this poor treatment. There is no excuse for this.
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie, horrible DVD
Review: The movie is beautiful, but (as all other reviewers mention) the DVD is almost unwatchable. The image quality is awful, and the subtitles actually are **ridiculously inaccurate** (I AM Italian, so you can believe me...). And I couldn't even turn them off, so even if you speak Italian there is no way you can avoid being bothered by them!! The sound is very poor too. Even for an Italian, it's not easy to follow the dialogues, and it's not because of southern accent, it's just that the sound is awful. But, after all, it's cheap, and nowadays you can't expect a good DVD for such a low price...
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, Horrible DVD
Review: The movie is beautiful, but (as all other reviewers mention) the DVD is almost unwatchable. The image quality is awful, and the subtitles actually are ridiculously inaccurate (I AM Italian, so you can believe me...). And I couldn't even turn them off, so even if you speak Italian there is no way you can avoid being bothered by them!!
The sound is very poor too. Even for an Italian, it's not easy to follow the dialogues, and it's not because of southern accent, it's just that the sound is crappy.
But, after all, it's cheap, and nowadays you can't expect a good DVD for [cheap].
Rating: 
Summary: Not racist at all
Review: The person who considered this movie racist and stereotypical should read up on World War II history. Both the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division and the 4th "Division Marocaine de Montagne" served in Italy in 1943 and 1944. Furthermore, all people involved in war were potential "barbarians". Proof of this has been related in more than one movie. Two thumbs up for Sofia Loren's emotionally charged performance. Her Oscar was well-deserved!
Rating: 
Summary: You get what you pay for!
Review: The quality of this particular video is, in a word, LOUSY! How could any fan of the lovely Sofia Loren stand to view this blurry piece of garbage? What a let down. I demand a refund......
Rating:
Summary: The Good and Bad Recordings of a Great Film
Review: This is a general review of all releases of this film on VHS and DVD as November 13, 2003, with specific technical comments on each individual release. The Bottom Line: There seem to be no acceptable DVDs or videos of this movie in the original Italian with subtitles. There seems to be at least one acceptable DVD and video of the film dubbed in English. With two exceptions all DVD and VHS releases of this movie as of November 13, 2003 are dubbed versions. The two exceptions are the VHS and DVD releases of the film by Madacy Entertainment. The quality of the Madacy releases, however, leaves much to be desired, to put it mildly. REVIEW OF ITALIAN-LANGUAGE RELEASES: I own the Madacy VHS tape of this movie and it looks and sounds like a fourth-generation copy of a much-used rental tape. I purchased it before the advent of DVD, when there was no other choice. The Madacy DVD has been reviewed in Doug Pratt's DVD-Video Guide (and can also be read at the DVDLaser.com web site). His description of the failings of Madacy's edition of this movie is not unlike my experience with Madacy's DVD of the Shirley Temple film "The Little Princess"--particurly, the thin tinny audio in which the sound often disappears. Possibly, the Madacy DVD of "Two Women" is simply a transcription of the worn-out Madacy VHS tape. Needless to say, I now avoid all Madacy products. DVD RELEASES DUBBED IN ENGLISH:
LaserLight, the wonderful budget company which has issued so many DVDs of the early Hitchcock films, has a good transfer of the dubbed version of this movie onto DVD. That version is still in the catalogue. I have not viewed the recent DVD issue by Delta Entertainment. However, I know that LaserLight became a Delta Entertainment label not too long ago. Thus, the Delta product may be identical to the earlier release from LaserLight. When amazon announced the Koch DVD of this movie, I lost no time in pre-ordering it. I also lost no time in returning it unopened, because the cover proclaimed it to be both dubbed and colorized. VHS RELEASES DUBBED IN ENGLISH: The available VHS tapes are from the same manufacturers as the DVDs and presumably have the same characteristics. Except for the horrible Madacy VHS tape, I haven't watched them. WHY WE HAVE THIS PROBLEM: The problem with this movie is that the studio allowed the copyright to lapse. Hence, anyone can reissue it now. As a result, the big studios who turn out quality DVD's won't touch it, because the backstreet editions will dilute their profits. The backstreet DVD factories either do a horrible job or think there's more profit to be made by dubbing or colorizing the film in the hope of making it infinitesimally more palatable to the huge movie audience which would never watch, let alone buy, a 40-year-old Italian art film no matter what you did to it. Fortunately for us, this did not stop Artisan (in cooperation with Republic Pictures) from issuing an excellent DVD of Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," which was in the same fix. Perhaps Artisan or MGM, which has made a practice of offering inexpensive but excellent DVDs of classic foreign movies, will someday rescue this film. I hope so. "Two Women" does not have quite the drawing power of the Capra perennial, but one can hope. It is very unfortunate that "Two Women" (in Italian: "La Ciociara") is in this fix, because it is an absolutely wonderful film, sensitive and ironic, full of drama, great acting, great directing, and great cinematography. Sophia Loren even received the best actress Oscar for 1961, very rare for a foreign-language film. In summary: if you want a decent Italian-language DVD or video of this movie, you are out of luck for the moment. If you wish a recording dubbed in English, then those from LaserLight should satisfy you, and the Delta Entertainment recordings are probably identical to the ones from Laserlight. A WORD OF CAUTION: Apparently, reviews for one release of a film in the on-line catalogue are automatically copied to other releases of the film. This is usually not a problem when the film has been released by only one manufacturer, because then the quality can be assumed to be reasonably uniform accross products. But in a case like "Two Women," where there are so many different releases because it is no longer protected by copyright, this need not be true. Thus, unless a review you read for a release of this particular film identifies the manufacturer in the review, the comments about the quality of the recording may not be relevant.
Rating:
Summary: film needs digital remastering
Review: this is a great film.......when i bought the DVD i assumed it would be a digitally remastered version......unfortunately it is not...the poor quality of the picture and sound is unacceptable...hopefully, a remastered version will be offered soon!
Rating:
Summary: great film, lousy copy
Review: This is a wonderful film about a mother struggling to preserve the safety of her child in war-torn Italy. The acting is absolutely superb, and the young JP Belmondo is a great surprise. The mother leaves Rome with her daughter for the bomb-free countryside, where she finds family and hides. Of course, it doesn't work out that well, first for danger and hunger, then their fate at the hands of rogue soldiers. The end is tragic but hopeful, as a new society is set to arise.
Unfortunately, the quality of this dvd is extremely mediocre - fuzzy images, muffled sound, etc.
Recommended for the art but not for the technical execution.
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