Claudia Cardinale’s first major starring role was a big success in Europe, even if our New York critics seemed primed for more ‘intellectual’ film art. She’s a sensation as Aida, a showgirl ditched by a dishonest lover … whose more gentlemanly but acutely underage brother comes to her rescue. It’s a hard lesson in survival and romantic incompatibility. Young Jacques Perrin is the decent kid who falls head over heels in love; Cardinale displays big talent as the vulnerable woman who knows the kid is just too young. Excellent direction by Valerio Zurlini, plus terrific pop music and a nice early career appearance by Gian Maria Volontè.

Girl With a Suitcase
Region-Free Blu-ray
Radiance Films
1961 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen 1:85 widescreen 1:66 widescreen 1:37 Academy / La ragazza con la valigia / 121 96 min. / Street Date April 28, 2025 / Available from / £14.99
Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Jacques Perrin, Luciana Angiolillo, Renato Baldini, Riccardo Garrone, Corrado Pani, Gian Maria Volonté, Romolo Valli, Elsa Albani.
Cinematography: Tino Santoni
Production Designer: Flavio Mogherini
Costume Design: Gaia Romanini
Film Editor: Mario Serandrei
Composer: Mario Nascimbene
Written by Leo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Valerio Zurlini
Produced by Maurizio Lodi-Fè
Directed by Valerio Zurlini

In her disc essay, Giuliana Minghelli notes that Italian director Valerio Zurlini, previously little known in the U.S., has been attracting more attention in the last ten years. She doesn’t say that the likely reason are quality video remasters of vintage Italian films, that have spotlighted many overlooked Italian filmmakers. Radiance Films makes a major contribution to this reassessment — not a month goes by without something fascinating made newly available to English-speaking audiences, in what to us amounts to a filmic premiere.

Girl With a Suitcase received some release dates when new in 1961; critics hot off the experience of Fellini’s  La dolce vita and Antonioni’s  L’avventura were eager to see the next Big Thing from Rome, especially as the newcomer Claudia Cardinale was being touted as the newest Italian sex star … one for whom Italian was not a core language.

Young cad Marcello Mainardi (Corrado Pani) callously ditches his latest pickup, singer Aida Zepponi (Claudia Cardinale). When she comes looking for him at their parents’ villa, Marcello instructs his younger brother Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) to brush her off. Lorenzo is an idealistic, conscientious high school student. He poses his problem to his priest-tutor Don Pietro (Romolo Valli): is one responsible for the bad actions of their relatives?   Lorenzo is advised to just forget it, but the sincere 16 year-old stops everything to help the beautiful young woman, eventually stealing his aunt’s money to get Aida a hotel room. Lorenzo tags along, falls in love, and is dismayed by how businessmen at the hotel treat Aida as an easy pickup. A day later at a café, he suffers as Aida’s old boyfriend Piero (Gian Maria Volontè) bullies her. Aida too is saddened — Lorenzo is simply too young for her, but his gentlemanly valor is impossible not to love.

Girl with a Suitcase is a sincere take on a theme that later became a focus of exploitation fare. When the ratings system came in, American movies were quick to fashion ‘coming of age’ love stories in which underage boys are initiated into the world of sex by hot young women —  The First Time,  Summer of ’42, etc.. This much earlier Italian film takes a wholly humane attitude toward a similar situation. It doesn’t pander to bad taste, but instead made a star of Claudia Cardinale. She had gained attention in supporting roles ( The Facts of Murder,  Rocco and his Brothers). She’s at the center of Girl with a Suitcase, a sympathetic relationship picture pinned to a specific social situation.

Cardinale’s Aida is a complex young woman. She comes from a poor background, wants to make good and knows that her looks will get the attention of men. Aida’s priorities aren’t always straight, and she certainly lacks judgment with the men in her life. Her looks do looks attract the scoundrels — impatient predators with big ideas and fast tongues. She was singing with Piero’s band, but left because she believed the lies and promises of Lorenzo’s brother Marcello, who said he could get her into movies. Two days later, Marcello literally strands her in the middle of Parma, while he pretends to service his precious sports car, a Lancia Aurelia Convertible. A premeditated cheat, Marcello introduced himself with a false name in preparation for leaving her flat.

Aida likes the attention, and likes the fringe benefits — a couple minutes alone in a hotel lobby, and she’s invited to a free dinner. Just a day later, she almost takes seriously the come-on of another slick jerk (Riccardo Garrone) who also says he has connections in the movies. Aida’s not exactly an angel — she talks about living with other showgirls, all angling to find ‘some rich stooge’ to pay for things. Yet she has an ethical core. She’s sweet and vulnerable but not a fool — she knows that self-respect is essential.

A broad social  and economic gulf stands between the virginal Lorenzo and the experienced Aida. She can’t believe the opulence of his family house — “You have a black tile bathroom.” “Do you really own this palace, or do you rent it?”  She’s too proud to admit that she’s at present dead broke and almost a vagrant. Only someone as green as Lorenzo would believe her fib about wiring home for money. She definitely doesn’t want to cause trouble for Lorenzo.

One day Lorenzo is following the direction of his tutors and obeying his aunt, and the next he’s giving away his aunt’s money to help his new friend. He plays a phonograph record of the opera Aida as a joke, and his flesh-and-blood Aida play-acts along, as if she were a 15-year-old as well. She at first connects with Lorenzo protectively, trying to keep him from drinking too much. Lorenzo is acutely aware of a need to do the right thing, which in Aida’s eyes makes him a prince.

The lovesick boy forgets all of his responsibilities. Aida can’t resist when he spends a small fortune on a dress for her, so she can show her face among the fancy hotel guests. We may be expecting dramatic extremes, and the possibility that the couple will become actual lovers. A surprisingly good scene involves Lorenzo’s tutor, a priest played by Romolo Valli ( Duck You Sucker). He calls Aida aside to ask her to leave Lorenzo alone, and instead ends up offering sincere advice.

Lorenzo may not know which end is up, which forces Aida to become the responsible adult … if they were caught together she’d probably be arrested. Lorenzo is the only male in her life that treats her in an honorable way. When they kiss and embrace, we feel their desperate hopelessness.

Watching Claudia Cardinale bloom on-screen is a pleasure in itself. The most arresting new Italian actress of the early ’60s became a top European-international star, bar none. There are moments in which Aida dominates a scene with just a smile or a look. She’s trying her best not to be pushy, and certainly doesn’t want to act needy. She’s entirely too forgiving of men who don’t respect her. Marcello is an abusive, elitist jerk. We see less of Piero, who comes off as an overly dominating hothead. We don’t hear his cruel demands but from Aida’s reaction they must be terrible. This is fairly early in the film career of future star Gian Maria Volonté, when he was taking work in costume fantasies — a  Hercules movie, even a Sci-fi adventure by  Edgar G. Ulmer.

The fresh-faced Jacques Perrin is perfect casting. Lorenzo Fainardi is an honorable rich kid, just old enough to lose his heart. He knows that his behavior over Aida is madness, but can’t help himself. When Lorenzo’s eyes get that puppy-dog look, there’s no way Aida can lie to him. Perrin was just 20 years old but had been in films since he was five; he was to become a major presence as a film actor, and also as a producer, on shows like Costa-Gavras’s  “Z”. Fifteen years later, he starred again for Zurlini’s final film  The Desert of the Tartars.

Lorenzo and Aida have chemistry, but not on an equal footing. The lovestruck kid tags along, and then rushes to catch up with her at a train station and in a beach club. Like a cherub dressed for a high school prom, he is no match for experienced operators 15 years his senior. To Aida’s horror, Lorenzo challenges yet another would-be one-night stand twice as big as himself. Is Lorenzo going to get himself killed?

Zurlini and his writers deliver an honest story minus dramatic distortions. They do not suggest that Aida and Lorenzo can in any way become a couple, and they don’t try to blame callous adults or society in general. The boy and the showgirl are presented as responsible individuals ready to accept the consequences of their actions. Thanks to the intensity of the performances and Zurlini’s measured direction, Girl With a Suitcase is an emotionally satisfying experience.

Zurlini found his way to directing through writing and short subjects. We’ve reviewed his  Estate violenta on a 2005 NoShame DVD double bill with Suitcase, and also the very good  Le soldatesse, Zurlini’s war movie about Italians in Greece, with an impressive cast — Anna Karina, Marie Laforêt, Lea Massari, Tomas Milian and Mario Adorf.

Radiance Films’ Region-Free Blu-ray of Girl With a Suitcase is a beautiful 4K restoration, in widescreen B&W. Valerio’s direction doesn’t call attention to itself as much as does that of Antonioni, but he does hold some shots just long enough to let a facial expression sink in. The show is also bookended with extended takes — in each Aida makes progress from a distant background, moving toward the camera.

Mario Nascimbene’s music score combines a guitar and a harpsichord. The lively soundtrack makes a great use of pop tunes as an aural backdrop. The Champs’ Tequila plays on a juke box at the beach club. When Lorenzo agonizes as he watches Aida with other men, a novelty song is foregrounded on the soundtrack: Adriano Celentano’s ‘Impazzivo per Te’ aka  ‘Mai Mai Mai Più’ — “Never never never again.”  If that’s not enough, Dimitri Tiomkin’s Deguello from The Alamo pops up, unexpectedly.

Radiance gives us interviews with Zurlini’s assistant director and one of the film’s 5 writers, plus critical comment by Bruno Torri (on the director) and Kat Ellinger (on the film’s social-cultural-sex politics).

We liked the text essays in Radiance’s insert booklet. Giuliana Minghelli writes that Claudia Cardinale’s Aida comes off very differently in the film’s French version. The two actors performed in French, but for the version we are seeing, the Italian voice artist reinterpreted her character as ‘more ironic and detached.’

Cullen Gallagher contributes a piece about the film’s reception in the United States. The American review roundup is illuminating — news outlets took Suitcase to be an introduction of a new sexpot, a ‘pizza Bardot’ to some. Others took her acting seriously. The picture, we learn, was cut by 25 minutes here and by almost 39 minutes in the U.K. …

A reversible disc sleeve gives the buyer a choice of the dramatic original poster artwork, or handsome new cover art by Filippo Di Battista, using a photo that represents the film quite well. One presents Aida dominated by an aggressive, selfish man, and in the other she seems frustrated by an unworkable relationship.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Girl With a Suitcase
Region-Free Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Interviews:
with assistant director Piero Schivazappa (2006)
with screenwriter Piero De Bernardi (2006)
with film critic Bruno Torri (2006)
Visual essay by Kat Ellinger (2024)
Illustrated 36-page limited edition booklet with writing by Giuliana Minghelli and Cullen Gallagher.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: April 17, 2025
(7319girl)

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