The Long Night of 1943 (by Gordiano Lupi)

Florestano Vancini (1926-2008) made a fine debut as a director with a movie based on one of the “Five stories from Ferrara” (Cinque storie ferraresi) written by Giorgio Bassani and winner of the Strega literary prize in 1956. Vancini sets the dramatic story a reminder of the last episodes of fascist slaughters in a foggy and eerie Ferrara. It is a story of love and death, an existential drama set neorealistically among the ruins of a lost war, as Dr Pino Barillari (E.M. Salerno), a victim of syphillis, watches the days go by and resignedly accepts his beautiful wife’s (B. Lee) liaison with Franco Villani (G. Ferzetti). At the heart of the film is the fascist repression ordered by the provincial party secretary Sciagura (Calamity) (G. Cervi). He orders that ten or so antifascist scapegoats be shot so as to avenge the fascist consul’s murder that Sciagura himself had plotted to get rid of him. Among the victims is the lawyer Villani, Franco’s father; this tragic event persuades Franco to leave Italy. Years go by, it is now 1960 and Ferrara has changed. Franco comes back with his French wife and children to see the memorial stone on the spot where his father was shot. He goes to the chemist’s shop and he learns that the doctor has died and that his wife left Ferrara, but he also meets Sciagura and he greets him as if nothing had happened. “I believe he never did anything wrong”, he says to his wife in the last sad scene. This is a savage indictment by Vancini seventeen years after the tragic event of the many fascists responsible for murders and deaths who have not been punished, who are still among us, masquerading as respectable people.

There are no positive characters in Vancini’s neorealistic drama. Franco chooses to run away and does not want to know the name of his father’s murderer. Pino watches everything from his window but he does not report anything and his coward silence makes him an accomplice of the fascists. Anna is the best character in the film because she would like her husband to confess, but she too is a traitor who leaves her husband to his lonely death. The film is half melodrama and half war report, in a work that conveys the neorealistic and intimate effects of Vancini’s filming in his home town of Ferrara, creating a gem of fiction for the audience and critics alike. The whole story is based on a true episode – a fascist reprisal- and, for this reason, the making of the film ran into many difficulties. It came out with a 16 certificate because of some scenes between Belinda Lee (Gualtiero Jacopetti’s wife who died in her youth) and Gabriele Ferzetti that were considered rather explicit. Vancini was always doubtful about the real reason for this prohibition and always declared that it was imposed in order to obstruct the screening of a film that was so thoroughly antifascist.

The Long Night of 1943 was shot in the Rome studios and in a night-time Ferrara with excellent photography and a wealth of authentic detail. It features a superb cast, above all Enrico Maria Salerno as a man racked with remorse and consumed by his illness and Belinda Lee in a very intense performance of a woman worn out by her own mistakes. Ferzetti and Cervi show great professional skill and are both perfect while playing, respectively the part of the coward and that of the persecutor in a double-breasted suit. Raffaella Carrà plays a small part and appears in the credits under her real name (Pelloni). The music is excellent and boasts some of the songs written by another Ferrara man, Oscar Carboni, and, at the end, the fascist anthem ‘Vincere’ performed by Michele Montanari.

Director: Florestano Vancini. Subject: Giorgio Bassani (short story “Una notte del 43”). Screenplay: Ennio de Concini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Florestano Vancini. Photography: Carlo di Palma. Editing: Nino Baragli. Special effects: Stacchini’s Esplovit. Art director: Carlo Egidi. Costume director: Pier Luigi Rustichelli. Producers: Antonio Cervi, Alessandro Jacovoni. Film Studios: Aiace Film, Euro International film. Distribution: Euro International Film. Black and white. Dramatic- Length 106’. Actors: Belinda Lee (dubbed by Lydia Simoneschi) (Anna Barillari), Enrico Maria Salerno (Pino), Gabriele Ferzetti (Franco Villani), Gino Cervi (Carlo Aretusi), called SCIAGURA (Calamity), Andrea Checchi (chemist), Nerio Bernardi (Lawyer Villani), Loris Bazzocchi (Vincenzi), Raffaella Pelloni (Carrà) (Ines Villani), Alice Clemens (Blanche), Carlo di Maggio (consul), Isa Querio (Villani’s wife), Silla Bettini, Tullio Alatamura, Romano Ghini, Mario Bellini, Gabriele Toth, Franco Cobianchi, Cesare Martignoni, Nino Musco.

Awards: Best first film at the twenty-first Venice festival (1961), Silver Ribbon to Enrico Maria Salerno – best supporting actor- (1961)

Translation by Paola Roveda (supervised by Roma O’Flaherty)

"The courage" di Domenico Paolella (by Gordiano Lupi)

Weekly section on the critical engagement of cinema by Gordiano Lupi.

The Courage is a classic comedy adapted from a play by Augusto Novelli, revised by Totò himself, who also produced this film which was not, however, very successful.

Domenico Paolella (Foggia 1915 - Rome, 2002) was a director who survived the fall of fascism; he began as an assistant to Carmine Gallone (Scipio Africanus), who debuted at the age of 24 with Gli ultimi della strada (The last of the road) (1939), an unusual film - albeit propagandistic - about Neapolitan street urchins. Paolella was a maker of interesting short films, a war correspondent from the Soviet front, and a newsreel director of INCOM (1946-1951).

His name remains linked to comedies and musicals, especially in the various films starring Totò. He died in 2002, but he directed his last films in 1979: “Gardenia”, “Either beautiful or ugly, everyone laughs”, “No, it is not out of jealousy” and one episode of “Three under the sheet” by Paolo Dominici. He is remembered for his work in the nineties as the author of stories and screenplays for several films by Aldo Lado, Stelvio Massi, Lamberto Bava and Sergio Sollima. Among his best titles areThe Nuns of Saint Archangel (1972) and Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973), forerunners of the “nun movie”, though he made artistically good historical movies. Many films about Maciste, Goliath and Hercules - the 1960s Italian sword and sandal movies - bear his signature.

The Courage is a well-structured, well-photographed comedy, with an elaborate and flawless screenplay, filmed almost entirely indoors (at Tirrenia – Pisorno studios) and well edited. Gino Cervi is the “Commendatore” Paoloni, saviour of the crafty Gennaro Vaccariello who, after falling into the waters of the Tevere, takes advantage of the situation to keep himself - and his large family – maintained by his benefactor. There are many misunderstandings, as in any good farce. Cervi is excellent in the role of the gruff good-natured man, as is Toto in the part of the poor man who invents ways of surviving from day to day. Totò is refrained from from being too flamboyant by Paolella and a whole team of scriptwriters. He limits his double-meaning gags to an exchange with Gianna Maria Canale (the Commendatore’s lover) when he pretends to be a wealthy Argentine who wants to marry her: "Of course, my dear, a “Vaquerillos” more or a “Vaquerillos” less: what difference does it make?". An obligatory fifties-style love story features as a subplot of the film. The extremely young Irene Galter and Gabriele Tinti (the latter will go on to marry Laura Gemser and become a big name in genre films) play the usual story of the young heiress who falls in love with the poor but beautiful boy. Totò becomes Gino Cervi’s great friend, uncovering a scam against him hatched by Leopoldo Triste (the untrustworthy administrator) and freeing him from the kept woman (Canale) who had been taking large amounts of money from the corporate coffers. We would point out that during the first lines of the film Gino Cervi claims to be resident in via Marcello Marchesi, the name of one of the screenwriters of the film.

Domenico Paolella was a fairly accomplished director at the time but, despite this, the contemporary Luigi Chiarini (1956) wrote that he was "a young director who clung to Totò to achieve success" and ended up slating the movie by calling it "colourless and dull." The fault which Chiarini lays at the director’s door is that of using an old theatrical script, Petrolini’s old favourite, just to create a farce, without saying anything new. The critic Paolo Mereghetti grants the film two stars: "A kind of surreal apology ... the premise’s originality quickly unravels into a sort of moralistic lecture ... the cardinal’s imitation on the phone with the funnel is unforgettable."

Morando Morandini (two and a half stars from the critics, three from the public) is more indulgent: "A witty and precise satire. The pace slowed in the second half, that is carried almost solely by Toto."

Pino Farinotti confirms his verdict of three stars, without giving any reason. In our opinion, The Courage is a film that shows Totò’s true comic talents, since it is based on a solid screenplay and directed by a director with a steady hand who is never dominated by the actor. Totò also worked as an author in the drafting of the plot and creates a very theatrical comedy from the one-act play by Augusto Novelli. There are wonderful monologues about the poor who bring children into the world because they cannot afford other pastimes, but also about skeletons in the closet, the unspeakable secrets that everyone has, and that may always be used as a threat. The caricature of the faux-riche South American who calls his little Susy a Plum is hilarious. The combination of sex and politics, but also the trilogy of business - sex - politics, was already much in evidence in the fifties. It is a script which is still relevant today, if the few time-specific elements are removed.

Translation by Amneris Di Cesare (supervised by Roma O’Flaherty)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Gordiano Lupi (Piombino, 1960). Editorial manager of Edizioni Il Foglio, he contributes to Turin’s newspaper La Stampa as a translator of Yoani Sánchez’s blog. He translated the novels of the Cuban author Torreguitart Ruiz and published a number of books on Cuba, cinema, and many other topics. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi.

He participated in some TV broadcasts such as Corrado Augias’s Cominciamo bene le storie, Luca Giurato’s Uno Mattina, Odeon TV series on the Italian serial killers, Rete Quattro La Commedia all’italiana, Monica Maggioni’s Speciale TG1 on Cuba and Yoani Sánchez, Dove TV series on Cuba. He guested on some Italian and Swiss radio broadcasts for his books and comments on the Cuban culture.

In 2012 he published a long chapter in El otro paredón, an essay on the Cuban situation, written with four authors of the Cuban exile, and issued in the USA with English and Spanish versions. His books received a large number of reviews and mentions. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi. E-mail address: lupi@infol.it.

Fiasco in Milan (by Gordiano Lupi)

Weekly section on the critical engagement of cinema by Gordiano Lupi.

Fiasco in Milan (1959)

Director: Nanni Loy. Story: Age & Scarpelli. Writers: Age & Scarpelli with Nanni Loy. Editing: Mario Serandrei. Photography: Roberto Gerardi. Production Design: Carlo Egidi. Costume Design: Lucia Mirisola. Second Unit: Willie Antuono and Vana Caruso. Camera Operator: Silvano Ippoliti. Make-Up: Romolo De Martino. Director Of Production: Jone Tuzi. Production Company: Franco Cristaldi for Titanus. An Italian- French co-production made in the ‘Titanus’ soundstages by Vides. Negatives: Dupont. Development and Printing: Tecnostampa. Music: Piero Umiliani with ‘special guest’ Chet Baker and his ‘trumpet solo’. Actors: Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Claudia Cardinale, Nino Manfredi, Vicky Ludovisi, Riccardo Garrone, Tiberio Murgia, Carlo Pisacane, Gianni Bonagura, Luigina Amendola, Clara Bini, Lella Fabrizi, Mario Feliciani, Mauro Lemma, Gastone Moschin, Elvira Tonelli, Toni Ucci.

Nanni Loy (1925-1995) directed his solid debut feature ‘Fiasco in Milan’ (1959), a follow-up to ‘Big Deal On Madonna Street’ by Mario Monicelli (1958), after the two movies he made with Gianni Puccini, writer of ‘Bitter Rice’ (1949) and director of ‘The Attic’ (1963). Even though he knew that ‘Madonna Street’ was a comedy with its feet planted in neo-realism, Nanni Loy takes Monicelli’s characters and treats them not as sketches but as real human beings, even if their stories turn out to be less deep than in the original film.

In the absence of Antonio De Curtis a.k.a ‘Totò’ and Marcello Mastroianni, Loy casts charismatic Nino Manfredi (‘Café Express’ also by Nanni Loy) in the role of motor wizard ‘Piede Amaro’ and turns the ‘sexy card’ with teen bombshell Vittoria ‘Vicki’ Ludovisi. Critics should not draw parallels between the two movies because they are each too different and ambitious in their unique way.Fiasco in Milan is just a fresh and lively ‘crime comedy caper’ set in the streets of Rome and Milan and at Bologna train station, with a sumptuous jazz soundtrack by Pietro Umiliani scattered with tracks from Chet Baker and his trumpet.

As for the story: in Milan a crime boss (Garrone) reads in the paper of a failed heist at the Rome pawn shop ‘Monte di Pietà’ (featured in the first movie) and gets in touch with ‘Er Pantera’ (Gassman) to create a new gang to rob the armoured van carrying the winnings of the football pools after the big soccer match in Milan. Despite the help of an inside man, thanks to whom the job is meticulously planned, everything goes awry. The gang gets rid of the loot, which is then recovered by the police. Loy himself appears, in a Hitchcock-style cameo, as a guy nearly run over by Piede Amaro’s car after the heist. The director serves the characters well, not interfering with them but taking Gassman’s character of Er Pantera to its inevitable consequences. Riccardo Garrone is the ‘Milan guy’ who sets up the heist, while a young Gastone Moschin is the librarian who educates the son of an illiterate Manfredi. Vicki Ludovisi is Floriana, the sexy crazy babe who performs some daring strip scenes, sunbathes almost naked on the patio (risking the scissors of the censor of the time) works in a nightclub and speaks with a lisp. Her role is central to the movie because she prepares the gang for their crime and teaches Gassman the Milan dialect and, predictably, winds up in bed with him. Ludovisi’s acting career sadly stopped six years later, but not before having worked with Steno, Mattòli and Simonelli. In the film, Renato Salvatori and Claudia Cardinale get engaged, with Tiberio Murgia’s Sicilian blessing , but she runs away when it dawns on her that she is living with thieves. Salvatori gives the usual romantic neo-realistic touch to the film in his small but fundamental role in the sub-plot of the ‘love story’ with Cardinale. Capanelli, overwhelmed by hunger, dies of overeating but the scene is not as dramatic as Monicelli would have made it, thanks to Loy’s lighter tone. Nonetheless, the meeting with Pisacane at the hospital is brief, funny but also intense. At one point, Garrone, with a smile, quotes ‘Totò’: “when it comes to girls, the book-keeper can’t keep his head”.

Age and Scarpelli create the new character of ‘Piede Amaro’ played by Nino Manfredi, and Loy makes the most of the actor’s comic talent. In the movie he is presented as a mechanic in an unhappy marriage who wants to get a divorce. In 1959 it was unusual, even in comedy, to deal with what was considered a transgressive topic (divorce was made legal in Italy in 1970) and the character of the Catholic mother-in-law who prefers her son-in law to her own sinful daughter whom she disowns, is unusual. Their child is fought over and shunted back and forth like in a modern American movie.

The setting of Fiasco in Milan works well and Roberto Gerardi’s black and white photography evokes an Italy that no longer exists: the ‘economic boom’ of the late fifties, with Milan’s grand Central Station, the underbelly of the city of Rome and the first train loads of football supporters travelling to away matches. There are also some nice noir touches in the car that changes from black to white and changes its number plate. Er Pantera delivers an unforgettable line in thick Roman dialect at the end at the end of the movie, roughly translatable as “They’ve gone and aloned me, those four fuckers!”

Italian cinema critics like Pino Farinotti and Morando Morandini are not enthusiastic about the movie (which was a blockbuster when it came out) “Dull but not boring”, “The usual story about poor guys forced to steal” or “Fun but not like Madonna Street” - but nevertheless a movie to watch again to study the poetic cinematography of interesting Italian director Nanni Loy.

Translation by Gino Udina (supervised by Roma O’Flaherty)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Gordiano Lupi (Piombino, 1960). Editorial manager of Edizioni Il Foglio, he contributes to Turin’s newspaper La Stampa as a translator of Yoani Sánchez’s blog. He translated the novels of the Cuban author Torreguitart Ruiz and published a number of books on Cuba, cinema, and many other topics. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi.

He participated in some TV broadcasts such as Corrado Augias’s Cominciamo bene le storie, Luca Giurato’s Uno Mattina, Odeon TV series on the Italian serial killers, Rete Quattro La Commedia all’italiana, Monica Maggioni’s Speciale TG1 on Cuba and Yoani Sánchez, Dove TV series on Cuba. He guested on some Italian and Swiss radio broadcasts for his books and comments on the Cuban culture.

In 2012 he published a long chapter in El otro paredón, an essay on the Cuban situation, written with four authors of the Cuban exile, and issued in the USA with English and Spanish versions. His books received a large number of reviews and mentions. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi. E-mail address: lupi@infol.it.

Two Women (1960) di Umberto De Sica (by Gordiano Lupi)

Weekly section on the critical engagement of cinema by Gordiano Lupi.

Two Women is a great film and based on the intense and intriguing novel by Alberto Moravia. The book is written in first person and the narrator is Cesira, a humble woman and mother of a teenage girl, Rosita. After 1943 Cesira decides to escape from Rome to her native village, Sant’Eufemia, in the mountains of Ciociaria. There she meets and falls in love with Michele but their happiness is short lived: mother and daughter are raped in a church by a gang of Moroccan soldiers, while Michele is killed by the Germans.

Sophia Loren plays the ultimate role in her acting career - which she will play again in a Dino Risi’s tv adaptation after thirty years – even if producer Carlo Ponti would have actually liked Anna Magnani and Sophia cast in the women’s roles. Once it was obvious Anna Magnani wouldn’t be a member of the cast, Vittorio De Sica decided to make Sophia Loren look older and cast twelve-year-old Eleonora Brown in the role of the daughter. That was a brilliant idea, because the most memorable thing about the film is the mater dolorosa (grieving mother) interpretation by Sophia Loren after the rape scene, who is broken-hearted for her daughter’s fate. Sophia won an Academy Award as best actress in a leading role and gave a genuine insight of the novel in the film.

Eleonora Brown’s acting is not the finest, but at the end of the day she has to play the role of the daughter created by Moravia: a saint that turns into a whore after being raped, a little girl that hasn’t met a man yet, who was devout but is now transformed by the war.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is an intellectual in love, even if the character of the novel is portrayed a little bit differently.

The film ignores many things which are really important in the novel: the selfishness of the farmers, the ignorance of the poor people, the sloth of the Italians, who are less interested in the war’s winner but rather in its end, the living conditions of the poor, the famine, the black market… The film is characterised by a lyric melodrama, a screenplay that mixes Neorealism and a romanticized reality, some sentimental moments, but most of all possesses a strong female connotation given by the mother-daughter relationship. The English and Spanish titles (Two Women/Dos Mujeres) are not misleading. The people’s anger towards those who involve people in an unwelcome war, as well the will of the people to start again are obvious.

De Sica and Zavattini use Moravia’s topic to expose the horrors of war, to underline how men can change in this situation by acting in horrible ways. Fascists, Germans, deserters, English people, farmers and evacuees are all part of a suffering humans who are dominated and broken by major events beyond their control.

The black and white photography is by Gabor Pogany, the sets are build in detail in the mountains of Ciociaria. The music is by Trovajoli and the editing by Novelli.

The most extraordinary scene is the rape in the church, full of suspense and horror in the women’s eyes. Another scene from the novel is the one showing a crazy woman walking among the rubble, offering her breast to what would appear to be her dead child. Moravia, De Sica and Zavattini touch on a sore point, saying Italians are masters of nothing anymore, except for women’s breast milk.

Two Women tells a sad past that many people want to forget in 1960, but this is the right time to digest such a story. The film is more lyric than the novel, but it shows Italy’s hopelessness after the 1943 armistice, a country shocked by the civil war and the bombs. The remake made thirty years later was actually pointless.

Translation by Emma Lenzi (edited by Sabrina Macchi)

Bellezze in bicicletta (by Gordiano Lupi)

Beginning today, the blog Gaspar, El Lugareño is pleased to announce a new section on the critical engagement of cinema by Gordiano Lupi.

Beauties on bicycles (1951)

Bellezze in bicicletta (1951) 

Directed by: Carlo Campogalliani. Story and Screenplay:Vittorio Metz, Marcello Marchesi, Mario Amendola, Carlo Campogalliani. Photograph: Mario Montuori and Fernando Risi. Editing: Fernando Tropea. Production Designer: Alfredo Montori. Music: Amedeo Escobar. Productor: Alessandro Di Paolo. House of Production and Distribution: Edic. Cast:Silvana Pampanini, Delia Scala, Franca Marzi (dubbed by Tina Lattanzi), Peppino De Filippo, Renato Rascel, Harold Tieri, Virgil Riento, Renato Valente, Charles Ninchi, Charles Croccolo, Luigi Pavese, Arnoldo Foa, Nerio Bernardi, Nico Pepe Dante Maggio, Carlo Romano, Elvio Calderoni, Oscar Andriani, Mara Morgan, Dino Valdi, Amedeo Tinker Bell, Dominic Serra, Lita Perez, Pirani Amina Maggi, Mignone, Totò, Vittorio Duse, Ignazio Balsamo.

Carlo Campogalliani (1885 - 1974) was an Italian historic film director, son of wanderers, self-taught designer first, then theater actor. He begins to deal with cinema in 1909, as an interpreter of King Lear by Giuseppe De Liguori. Popular director like few others, he attended the most successful genres of the silent period, especially adventurous and peplum with the character of Maciste. Letizia Quaranta was his favorite protagonist who ended up becoming his wife, partner on set and in life. He worked in France, South America and Germany, but remained active in Italy even after the advent of sound, directing two films starring Ettore Petrolini. His post-war cinema followed the taste of the good mouth public, he attended the pink neorealism, anticipated the musical movie and also went back to the old mythological Maciste and Ursus. Active until 1961, he died in 1974 in Rome having gone through many periods of Italian cinema. (For further information: Roberto Poppi - The Italian Directors - Gremese ).

Beauties on bicycles (1951) is a romantic comedy of great popular success, followed by Beauties on scooters (1952), a sort of sequel to exploit the commercial phenomenon. The director created his most famous work after the war at the age of 66 years, seasoned as an author of melodramas and romantic stories. The plot revolves around the adventures of two penniless ballet dancers, Delia Scala and Silvana Pampanini (recited with their real names as if they interpreted their own) who go from Milan to Bologna to try to be engaged by Toto. A roadblock stops the journey and the enterpreneur and wealthy Giulio (Valente) invites the two girls to get into his high-powered car. The girls welcome the move but Giulio, infatuated with Silvana, tries to kiss her causing a negative reaction and her decision to get out. The girls end up in a country house and believing that they have to deal with a thug, run away at night to reach Toto. Another misconception: Toto is not him, but a hoaxer (Valdi) , the girls flee again, dressed as ballerinas, and are hidden in a barrack by a silly soldier ( Croccolo ). At one point, Delia and Silvana rent two bikes and continue the journey to Bologna singing the famous song Beauties on bicycles. Giulio reaches them once again, makes peace with them and invites them to dinner taking them away from the clutches of a bumbling mechanic (Rascel) that dissects the bikes. Aroldo (Tieri), Delia's jealous boyfriend, convinced that because of Giulio, he is going to become a cuckold, fights with his rival, but when he understands the situation becomes his friend. It all ends with a bike ride organized by Giulio's father (Romano), a kind of feminine stage ofTour of Italy, from Bologna to Milan, which the two girls win and marry their boyfriends.

The film is lyes within pink neorealism, so it must be taken for what it is and not judging it as within the Italian comedy, still far in time. The characters are stereotypical caricatures, while the shots of the expert Campogalliani try to avoid images of rubble and destruction. A photograph in black and white which resemble postcards that depict an Italy that is re-starting, where all goes well, populated by wealthy young men that run on expensive cars and girls who think only of romantic marriage. It is great about city scenes, and the sequences in the Bolognese countryside and the scenes at the Tour of Italy, with the people crowding the roadsides to incite the champs. Comic parts are well done, because interpreted by the likes of Peppino De Filippo, Carlo Croccolo, Renato Rascel, Dante Maggio, Aroldo Tieri and Arnoldo Foa. A funny scene that takes place in a supposed haunted house where two bumbling thieves as De Filippo and May end up running away scared by the presence of Pampanini and Scale. Great Renato Rascel as the son of a mechanic who messes it up everything by disasembling before the Delia and Silvana's bikes and immediately after Giulio's car engine. It is an episodic film in disguise, a container of sketchs, a comedy vaudeville signed by the couple Metz - Marquesas and a young Amendola. The film is lively, elegant, keeps alive the viewer's attention despite an irrelevant plot and thanks to the comedy and the graces of two scantily clad popular showgirls as Delia Scala and Silvana Pampanini. The expert Campogalliani also anticipates the seaside comedy and uses the ploy of the female cycling race to show a little legs to an audience not too accustomed to such visions. Beauties on bicicles is still liked today and it is not aged because of its naivety bottom, for the unreal optimism in which it is imbued, for it being a film out of time and history. The tune of the soundtrack of Amadeus Escobar is an historic achievement that will be sung for years by all Italians. All of us who were born in the late fifties, we have heard our mother or grandmother sing: "But where are you going beauty on a bicycle?"

Here are some critical opinions:

E. Fecchi from Intermezzo (No. 5, March 15, 1951 ): " If the whole movie had been maintained on the same pace of the first half, it would have been a masterpiece. There are a panache and an intelligent search of gags that we have not seen in other films, there is a logic, which , even for a brilliant film is undoubtedly an asset. There are two of our young actresses who have really given their maturity test (...) . In the second half there is the unfortunate incident of Maggio and Peppino De Filippo, who was supposed to be cut without mercy . "

We do not share the opinion of the scathing comedy scene of De Filippo - Maggio, which we see fresh and full of panache, and also believe that the level of the two segments of the film is not inharmonious.

Notifications film (vol. 29 , 1951): "The work has not artsy pretentions, but conducted with panache, is animated by the recitation of talented artists of magazine and comic theater."

Pine Farinotti gives three stars without motivating it. Morando Morandini two stars and three the audience: " Unpretentious, but spirited. Interesting document of an era that seems far away. " Paolo Mereghetti (a star and a half) is the least enthusiastic: " rose-water comedy with interludes of Pampanini singing typical themes of poor Italy, or praising the bike and the need of gift for all."

Translation by Ilaria Rossi (supervised by Irene Tossi)

---------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Gordiano Lupi (Piombino, 1960). Editorial manager of Edizioni Il Foglio, he contributes to Turin’s newspaper La Stampa as a translator of Yoani Sánchez’s blog. He translated the novels of the Cuban author Torreguitart Ruiz and published a number of books on Cuba, cinema, and many other topics. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi.

He participated in some TV broadcasts such as Corrado Augias’s Cominciamo bene le storie, Luca Giurato’s Uno Mattina, Odeon TV series on the Italian serial killers, Rete Quattro La Commedia all’italiana, Monica Maggioni’s Speciale TG1 on Cuba and Yoani Sánchez, Dove TV series on Cuba. He guested on some Italian and Swiss radio broadcasts for his books and comments on the Cuban culture.

In 2012 he published a long chapter in El otro paredón, an essay on the Cuban situation, written with four authors of the Cuban exile, and issued in the USA with English and Spanish versions. His books received a large number of reviews and mentions. See the full list at www.infol.it/lupi. E-mail address: lupi@infol.it.