Four Great Feature Films About Italian Americans

Too often Italian American culture is associated with mobster movies like "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas", or TV shows like "The Sopranos." While that highly colorful, albeit violent criminal legacy, can be traced to Italian immigrant's version of organized crime - which every culture has - it's an over the top, and arguably a suffocating theme. It's fun watching James Gandolfini rule his mobster family as alpha male Goombah, but the obsession with Mafia plot lines obscures other entertaining aspects of the Italian American experience.

Here's four of the more critically acclaimed and popular movies centered around Italian Americans.

Marty (1955)

Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for his role as Marty. The film also scored Oscars for Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. Borgnine plays Marty as a shy, working class guy. He still lives with his mom and he's not exactly a ladies man. It's that kind of genuine vibe that earned the film so many Oscars, and the public's passionate adoration for the film still lives today. Italian American actor Ernest Borgnine is also still going strong, acting as 'Mermaid Man' in the kid favorite "SpongeBob SquarePants", and writing best selling books. At the amazing age of 94, he makes Betty White, who's 89, look absolutely youthful.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

John Travolta dazzled audiences as suave dancing fool Tony Manero. The disco laden soundtrack was composed by the Bee Gees, and the movie became a pop culture icon, while catapulting Travolta into Hollywood's stratosphere.

Travolta's character comes from a nice Italian American working class family living in Brooklyn. By day Tony toils away in a hardware store, selling screwdrivers and paint to his neighbors. By night, he morphs into a fast stepping Italian stallion on the club dance floor of the hip disco palace 2001 Odyssey. Many fans don't realize that the film was based on a British writer's article entitled, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", which for years was thought to be based on real people. In the 1990's, writer Nick Cohn revealed he'd made up the piece, basing Tony and his buddies on the British youth movement known as Mods.

Fatso (1980)

One hefty man's battle with the bulge becomes a hilarious journey into the Italian American family of Dom DiNapoli played by the beloved Dom Deluise. Though always funny, and at times approaching slapstick, the film also examines just how destructive a food addiction can be to an individual, or even an entire family. Italian American actress, writer and director Anne Bancroft wrote and directed the movie, and also co-stars as Dom's frazzled sister Antoinette.

Moonstruck (1987)

It's shocking to learn multi-talented Cher was concerned she'd be unable to perfect an authentic Italian American or Brooklyn sounding accent upon getting the role as love challenged Loretta Castorini. She obviously mastered the proper vocals so much so that it earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress for the memorable part. Co-starring with Danny Aiello, Nicholas Cage and Olympia Dukakis (Best Supporting Oscar for portraying Cher's mom), the film so captivated audiences that the American Film Institute lists it as number eight in their all time list for romantic comedies.