The Inheritance
A true diamond in the rough. Pay no attention to the glossy romance  cover for this film--inside is a great little movie. Based on an 1885 novel by Gaetano Carlo Chelli, it stars Dominique Sanda (who also appeared inThe ConformistandThe Garden of the Finzi-Continis).  She plays a scheming gold-digger who has her eyes on the prize of the Fiormonti fortune. The money was made by Papa Fiormonti (played by Anthony Quinn), a lousy SOB who in the first scene disowns his three adult children.  Sanda marries the most loutish child but is soon having an affair with the rakish one.  It's a great, evil (and oddly sympathetic) performance, and for her role Sanda won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1976.  Even the DVD quality can't mask a poor transfer, however, as this film still has a grainy quality, but the luster of this Machiavellian tale still shines through.--Keith Simanton