More Than a Miracle

More Than a Miracle is a 1967 film also titled Cinderella Italian Style and Happily Ever After. It stars Sophia Loren, Omar Sharif and Dolores del Río. The movie has a fairy tale narrative. Filmed in the countryside outside Naples, Francesco Rosi directed and Carlo Ponti produced. The theme music was a hit for Roger Williams, reaching #2 on Billboard's survey. Sergio Franchi recorded the title song (written by Kusik; Snyder; Piccioni) on his 1968 RCA Victor album, I'm a Fool To Want You. Plot The film recounts the misadventures of a beautiful and temperamental village girl Isabella (Sophia Loren) and an ill-tempered Spanish prince, Rodrigo (Omar Sharif). The prince is a risk taker, avoiding his parents' wishes for him to marry. The movie starts with the prince trying to tame a wild horse in the courtyard, while his mother the queen, asks when he will do as his father wishes and marry? There are 7 princesses waiting to dine with him, for him to choose from, but the prince isn’t interested and tells his mother as much, as he rides off leaving the palace. While riding the horse in the countryside, he is thrown off and loses the horse. The prince then walks to a hill where he sees a monk flying in the air above a group of laughing children. The monk comes down and also tells him it’s times to find his wife. The monk then gives him a donkey and some flour, telling him to ask someone to make him seven dumplings. On the way back, he finds his horse in field where Isabella is putting vegetables she’s pulling out of the ground in a bag she has over it. The prince tells her its his horse, and she says the horse is hers. They both accuse each other of being a thief. At this moment the kings guards come by looking for the prince, he grabs her and forces her to hide in the bushes with him until they leave, and then tries to kiss her. She pushes him away. She takes his hiding as proof he is a thief, and protests the horse is hers. Growing tired of this, the prince pushes her into the dirt and throws her supplies off the horse as he jumps onto it and tries to ride it yet again. Isabella laughs as the horse throws him off, saying “see he doesn’t know you”. She then cleans off her scrapes and takes her crops home, with the prince following her and riding circles around her the whole way. Once Isabella reaches her home she is relieved to have lost the prince, but she hasn’t, and he knocks on her door demanding she use the flour to make him seven dumplings.