Thursday, April 08, 2010

Join the cast!

Will you be in Ragusa today? If so, you can be an extra on Italian television's splendid Il commissario Montalbano television series, based on Andrea Camilleri's splendid novels. Details here.

If you're content to watch the series rather than appear in it, episodes are available in Italian on the RAI Web site or on DVD with English subtitles from the U.S. and Australia.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

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12 Comments:

Blogger JournoMich said...

I wish I was in Italy today! I certainly wouldn't be on the computer...

Michele
SouthernCityMysteries

April 08, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I'd wander to the casting call hoping the script called for a bewildered tourist.

April 08, 2010  
Anonymous Elisabeth said...

I'm hoping the script calls for Ingrid's older sister (me, natch) to visit Sicily and that she and Ingrid receive an invitation from Salvo to have dinner on the terrazzina of Salvo's house at Marinella (as it appears in the TV show) on a beautiful spring evening.

Maybe we'll have some tasty treat as prepared by Adelina, followed by some light dessert Ingrid and I picked up at the pasticceria, and all accompanied by a couple of bottles of fine Sicilian wine. And, of course, a whisky for Ingrid and me to top off the evening.

April 08, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

During which I, played by "Me," wander along the beach past Salvo's house muttering about stronzi and cornuti.

April 08, 2010  
Anonymous Elisabeth said...

Is this where we take pity on you, povero straniero, and invite you up to the terrazzina for some dessert? Or do we ask Salvo to arrest that pazzo?

April 08, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

On an unrelated matter, and before I forget, remember the scene where Salvo smashes the beachside villa's windows in "Gita a Tindari"? I don't remember the house as being on the beach in the novel's corresponsing scene.

Salvo seems so often to wind up with a drink when people show up at his house at odd hours or he winds up at someone's else's house at such hours, so I'll take the dessert and wind up increasing my stock of both parolacce and their Swedish equivalents.

April 08, 2010  
Anonymous Elisabeth said...

“I don't remember the house as being on the beach in the novel's corresponding scene.” It wasn’t; it was in an inland rural area where Salvo could smash away unobserved (although I guess because it takes place in Sicily, witnesses are few and far between even in highly populated areas, at least according to Camilleri). Unfortunately, the smashing of the Seven Dwarfs garden gnomes and the painting of expletives did not appear in the TV episode. And wasn’t it just a tad unbelievable that a Saracen olive tree would be growing practically on the beach? I realize the producers have certain constraints to deal with but, really…

April 08, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

That's how i recalled it. So many houses in the books are in out-of-the-way locations -- illegal development and all.

I did find such a tree on a beach odd, as I did the relatively populated location. I guess the producers wanted to avoid what they thought of as the dead screen time it would take to get Salvo out to the location. A favored, remote meditation spot, which I think is what the tree was (as well as an allusion to Pirandello) may not be the easiest thing to accommodate for a screen production. It was a bit of a jolt to see the scene transferred to a beach, but I got over it quickly. The scene is still effective.

April 08, 2010  
Anonymous kathy d. said...

Question from friend now addicted to Montalbano episodes in Italian on RAI Web site, has seen all 18 episodes three times each; he wants to know if anyone knows if the Pepe Carvalho series is posted anywhere or if dvd's are available in Spanish.

Thanks a lot.

April 12, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

You have one determined friend.

I don't know about the Pepe Carvalho series (I didn't know there was one), but he might be able to find out at a Spanish-language crime-fiction site called Detectives literarios.

April 12, 2010  
Anonymous kathy d. said...

By the way, there are four movies out featuring Pepe Carvalho and two tv series.

Finding an outlet that carries any of them is not easy.

Does anyone know of any trustworthy internet stores that sell international videos/dvds--which might carry these movies in Spanish?

April 15, 2010  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

MHz Networks in Virginia shows a number of international crime series and sells DVDs of at least some of them. I'm not sure if the Pepe Carvalho series is among them, but someone at the station might know. The guy in charge of programming the shows was named Mike Jeck.

April 16, 2010  

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