Italian films
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Although somewhat overshadowed by Vernay’s subsequent Monte Cristo film which starred the legendary Jean Marais, this film is a respectable adaptation of the famous Alexandre Dumas novel. It was made in two parts, each roughly about 90 minutes long, and was a Franco-Italian production, made under the watchful gaze of the Nazi overlords...
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With his native Italy brought to its knees by Mussolini’s fascist regime during World War II, with disease, starvation and unemployment rife, it was unlikely that Luchino Visconti’s first film as a director was going to be a cheery affair. Few films from this period convey the mood – the hopelessness, the squalor...
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One of the most important films in the history of European cinema, Roma, città aperta marked the birth of the Italian neo-realist movement and, no less auspiciously, sparked American interest in foreign language cinema (which had prior to the end of the Second World War been virtually non-existent). In a world still shocked by war...
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If Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City (1945) laid the foundation for the rebirth of Italian cinema in the aftermath of World War II, Vittorio De Sica’s Sciuscià (a.k.a. Shoeshine) would provide it with the impetus that would allow it to flourish in the following decades, establishing neo-realism and redefining the role of director as that of auteur...
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In his first film, Ossessione , director Luchino Visconti developed a style of cinema that came to be known as neo-realist. In stark contrast to the polished studio productions of the day, this approach used grim natural locations, largely non-professional actors, and accurately reflected the harsh reality of life as experienced by most people in run-down post-Mussolini Italy...
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Vittorio De Sica’s undisputed masterpiece, Ladri di Biciclette is widely considered to be one of the most important films made in Italy, and often figures in the list of the world’s top ten greatest films. Along with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), it defined the emerging trend towards neo-realism...
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Although the crime thriller had not yet achieved the popularity in France which it would in the following decade, the 1940s was really where the genre had its origins. At the time few French films attained the calibre of the American film noir classics which film directors were keen to emulate, but a few have stood the test of time and remain excellent examples of the early crime thriller...
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Marcel L'Herbier’s last film but one is largely a disappointment, exhibiting very little of the cinematic quality and dramatic intensity of the director’s earlier works (particularly his silent masterpieces). Although the film is said to be based on the novel by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, it differs markedly...
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René Clair’s telling of the Faustian myth is a characteristically tongue in cheek rendition of the famous tale, reminiscent in style to his earlier American film, I Married a Witch (1942). Both films rely heavily on special effects and unusual photography to emphasise the supernatural elements of the plot, but in a way that is intentionally comical...
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After winning international acclaim with their neo-realist masterpiece, Ladri di biciclette (1948), Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini’s next collaborative venture was something of a surprise. Miracolo a Milano is an extraordinary combination of Chaplinesque comedy, surreal fantasy and hard-hitting neo-realism...
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Already renowned for his acutely surreal and optimistic view of life, director René Clair surpassed himself with this outlandish romantic fantasy. As French matinee idol Gérard Philipe is propelled through history and cardboard Freudian dreamscapes, into the arms of such beauties as Martine Carol and Gina Lollobrigida...
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Umberto D. completes a cycle of neo-realist masterpieces that was the fruit of a remarkable collaboration between eminent film director Vittorio De Sica and the legendary screenwriter Cesare Zavattini. This series of films, which includes Shoeshine (1946) and Bicycle Thieves (1948), paints a sobering picture of society in post-war Italy...
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Beat the Devil is a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek yet totally bizarre concoction of screwball comedy and film noir adventure thriller, which manages to be irresistibly funny in spite of a plot that is childishly absurd and at times unfathomable. Director John Huston intended it to be a spoof of his earlier noir films, particularly The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre...
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I Vitelloni, Federico Fellini’s third film and his first international success, is an engaging piece that alternates between melodrama and farce in its colourful depiction of five wasters who seem incapable of growing up. Partly autographical (it is set in the director’s hometown), the film combines the neo-realist aspect which was prevalent in Italian cinema at the time with...
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This sumptuous Franco-Italian blockbuster production exemplifies historical film dramas of the 1950s – beautifully shot in Technicolor and showing a meticulous attention to detail in its lavish costume and set design, to say nothing of the exciting, well-choreographed action sequences. Whilst the film may be legitimately criticised for its overly sympathetic portrayal of Lucrezia Borgia...
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The film that earned Federico Fellini his international reputation and won him the first ever Foreign Language Film Oscar was La Strada, a landmark Italian film that is regarded by many as the director’s greatest work. With the confidence of a true master, Fellini brings a lyrical poetry to the familiar trappings of Italian neo-realist cinema and the result is one of the most truthful...
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This 1954 film from director Claude Autant-Lara is probably the most well-known and finest adaptation of Stendhal’s complex literary masterpiece, Le Rouge et le noir. Beautifully filmed in Eastmancolor, with captivating acting performances and a script that vividly evokes Stendhal’s celebrated novel, the film exemplifies the French quality period drama for this decade...
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Joseph L. Mankiewicz followed his magnificent satire on Broadway All About Eve (1950) with this equally scathing depiction of Hollywood. A twisted reinterpretation of the fairy tale Cinderella, the film shows how a good woman of humble origins and romantic ideals falls prey to the machinations of film directors, producers and playboys who cynically exploit her whilst seeming to fulfil her...
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For this, the third in the series of Franco-Italian Don Camillo films, the directorial baton passed from Julien Duvivier to veteran Italian director Carmine Gallone. Fernandel and Gino Cervi continue to play the roles they had made their own in the previous Don Camillo outings, although both are ill-served by a much weaker script than they had previously enjoyed...
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Whilst overshadowed by Fellini’s subsequent cinematic masterpieces, Le Notti di Cabiria deserves to be considered one of the director’s best works, a poignant examination of the fallibility and resilience of the human spirit. An intensely moving film, it shows the futility of blind faith – in religion...
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