Beatrice Cenci is an Italian historical drama from Lucio Fulci. The story takes place in 16th century Italy. Francesco Cenci, wealthy father of the Cenci family, had been in trouble with the Vatican many times. It was widely known that he abused his children, including daughter Beatrice. The family finally decided to do something about it. They drugged him, beat him to death, then threw him off a roof to make it look like an accident. The Vatican convicted the four remaining family members, confiscated their property, beheaded Beatrice and her mother, quartered one remaining brother, and forced the younger brother to watch, then put him in prison. All of the family wealth went to a relative of the Pope.

This is one of those cases where truth is stranger than fiction, and this is a very nasty bit of business. The populace at the time did not agree with the sentence, and there is a legend that Beatrice returns each year carrying her severed head.

by Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The star, Adrienne La Russa, is an American. It's just a coincidence that she has an Italian last name in this Italian movie. Her co-star, Tomas Milian, is Cuban. The actor's languages made no difference in pre-1980 Italian movies because the directors almost never used live sound and all voices were added in post-production.

LaRussa didn't have much of a film career but she achieved a modicum of fame for two things. First, she was the second wife of Steven Seagal, or at least she should have been, because they got married, ceremony and all, but it didn't count, because The Pudgy Paladin had overlooked the little matter of divorcing his first wife!  The second thing she is famous for is having given Rip Torn a hand job on camera in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Our Grade:

If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to read the explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by our definition, a C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:

C

This is for history buffs, as it presents a reasonably accurate and affecting account of the true story.