Cera Una Volta (1967)
(More than a Miracle)

In this Cinecittà Cinderella story, Sophia Loren plays a defiant peasant that crosses paths with a brutal prince who is anything but charming. Omar Sharif struts in leather pants, breaks wild horses, and sets the dogs to attack the servants, but his royal Mother (Delores del Rio) says it’s time to settle down. She doesn’t care who he marries, but has invited seven princesses to seven dinners in his honor. One way or another, he’ll be married in a week.

Along comes a sainted priest with a magic sack of flour who tells Sharif he will marry the woman who can bake seven dumplings the Prince cannot eat — enter Loren who steals his heart, but her temperament matches the Prince’s! Before long his guards have stuffed her into a barrel so he doesn’t have to hear her anymore.

A toothless old witch helps her escape, and some lost boys get her a job in the palace where she runs afoul of a master chef who is creating an omelet with 3000 eggs…, and if this is beginning to sound like a random assortment of plots from different fairy tales, that’s the fun!

The costumes are outstanding. The Princesses are framed in auras of vivid color like a Sally Scott painting. The authentic castle locations and the lounge-y soundtrack by Piero Piccioni give the film an unexpected edge of Euro-erotica (not to mention Loren’s heaving bosoms), meanwhile the rustic kitchen and village streets could have been pulled from Carravagio. Loren is tan and sultry in a whitewashed rag gown of peasant chic, Sharif is delicious in high-boots and stiff collars.

Both come off fairly shrewish and their love for each other seems rooted in their inability to completely destroy one another — fairy tales are not for the liberated woman. Loren takes her lumps and likes it. But the film never tries to be more than a very pretty fantasy.

Like Cinderella, the film climaxes with the peasant girl transformed into a beautiful princess but with an unforgettable twist: she has to beat the other Princesses in a dishwashing contest!