Richard Conte & Judy Holliday in Full of life 1957
Married Angelenos, Italian Nick Rocco and Anglo Emily Rocco, live off of what Nick makes as a writer of fiction, which can be difficult at times because of the instability of their cash flow. They are currently overextended in recently having bought a house with the advance on Nick’s latest book, and with they imminently expecting their first child. Those financial problems become even more so when unexpectedly they have to do some major structural repairs to the house. They can pay a contractor to do the work for an exorbitant fee, or ask Nick’s father, stonemason Vittorio Rocco, who would probably do it for free. The issue with the latter is that overbearing and controlling Vittorio and Nick don’t see eye-to-eye on anything in Vittorio’s old world ways versus Nick’s more modern outlook. Nick and Emily haven’t even told his parents that they bought a house in Nick knowing that Papa would even be angry about its façade being stucco rather than stone. Opting for the latter in not having the money, Nick and Emily, eight months pregnant and she admitting she being a bundle of emotions in her hormones raging, travel to the Sacramento Valley to visit Nick’s parents to “negotiate” with Papa to do the work for them. In their time together, that negotiation takes on multi-faceted dimensions beyond the house, from living in Los Angeles as opposed to the Sacramento Valley where Papa would build them a house next to his and Mama’s, to Nick not having a steady job, about what Nick should write if he’s going to write anyway, and Nick and Emily having had a civil Vegas wedding as opposed to a Catholic church ceremony in Nick being a lapsed Catholic and Emily having no religious convictions in her philosophies of life being more intellectually based, bringing up the issue of how they are going to raise not only their child but children.
