Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoon where Elmer Fudd wants to get rid of an annoying dog that’s adopted him? He decides the best thing to do is play “picnic.” They go out to the countryside and set up a blanket with food. Fudd starts a game of fetch with the dog. He throws the stick extra far. As the dog runs off to retrieve the hunk of wood, Elmer Fudd scoops up the picnic blankent and basket, gets in the car and races back to the city. The dog is now lost in the wilderness. Girl With A Suitcase is close to the same thing except instead of a dog, Claudia Cardinale (The Pink Panther) is the “picnic” break up victim. How could someone do this to her?
Marcello (Watch Me When I Kill‘s Corrado Pani) is taking his girlfriend Aida (Once Upon A Time In The West‘s Claudia Cardinale) into the city for vacation. He thinks there’s something wrong with his sporty convertible, so he pulls into a garage. While he’s dealing with the mechanic, he has Aida go next door for a drink at the bar. While she’s away; he tells the mechanic that everything is fine, pulls Aida’s large suitcase out of the trunk and drives off without her. Aida doesn’t take being dumped so easily. She treks out to Marcello’s family mansion in the countryside. But the cad ducks her. She left to deal with his younger brother Lorenzo (Cinema Paradiso’s Jacques Perrin) who isn’t like his big brother. Even though she’s pissed off, Loreno quickly falls under her spell. He wants to treat her better than her brother. The problem is he’s still in high school and under the thumb of his aunt (Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis‘ Luciana Perrin). Since she can’t sleep over, he gets her back to the city and checks her into a hotel where they hang out for a time. But quickly Lorenzo is reminding he’s a young kid when one of the other hotel patrons wants to spend time with Aida.
The film stars quite a few actors that had a history in the wave of genre films from this era including Spaghetti Western superstar Gian Maria Volonte (A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More). Girl With A Suitcase is from the lofty cinema of Italy. The movie played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (1961) and booked into art houses instead of programed at drive-ins. This is the kind of Italian movie that was considered classy and sophisticated for a date night. Claudia Cardinale exudes the emotions of a woman who keeps getting into the wrong relationships (although her voice is dubbed in post-production by Caligula‘s Adriana Asti). Her Aida has the expressions to look innocent, tempting, frustrated and scorned during her plight. The same is true of Jacques Perrin since he knows he’s too young for a woman such as her, but he wants to be close to her. Girl With A Suitcase is a poignant tale between two people who you’re not sure how they’re going to work things out between them.
The Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. The black and white transfer is from a 4K restoration. The Audio is Italian LPCM 1.0 mono. Everything sound clear including the Italian songs the background. The movie is subtitled in English.
Piero Schivappa interview (19:52) has the assistant director discuss the movie and his relationship with director Valerio Zurlini. They worked together on two films. Their first meeting didn’t end with a job offer, but after he worked on a different film, he reapproached the director since they were shooting in his hometown of Parma for Girl With A Suitcase. He gets into the pre-production process. This is an archival interview from 2006.
Piero De Bernardi (17:07) lets one of the screenwriters tell tales from the set. On his first film with Zurlini, the lead actor was replaced in the middle of production. While the director would do rewrites, he was rather open when letting the screenwriters create the script.
Bruno Torri (17:04) is a film critic who tracks the career of Valerio Zurlini. He sees the director as art of the new wave of Italian directors from the early ’60s. He didn’t make too many movies during his short life (he passed away in 1982 at the age of 56) and fell into obscurity until a revival in the early 21st Century.
Kat Ellinger (14:22) presents a history of Italian cinema from during the war to the time when Zurlini rose up in the business. We also see how Girl With A Suitcase fits in with this time in Italian auteur cinema.
Limited Edition booklet with essays by Giuliana Minghelli and Cullen Gallagher about the film.
Radiance Films present Girl With A Suitcase: Limited Edition. Directed by Valerio Zurlini. Screenplay by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Valerio Zurlini. Starring Claudia Cardinale, Jacques Perrin, Luciana Angiolillo, Renato Baldini, Riccardo Garrone, Elsa Albani, Corrado Pani, Gian Maria Volonté, Romolo Valli, Enzo Garinei & Ciccio Barbi. Running Time: 122 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: April 29, 2025.
