3. Poor, Young and Good-Looking part two

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Even so the future development of the Italian-style comedy would not have taken place without the extraordinary success, also with critics (Grand Prize "ex-aequo", among other things, at the Cannes Festival), of the third important film comedy of Renato Castellani, DUE SOLDI DI SPERANZA (TWO CENTS OF HOPE), written in collaboration with a highly experienced script-writer like Ettore M. Margadonna and starring a celebrated actress of the Neopolitan theater, Titina De Filippo (the sister of Eduardo and Peppino), but directly inspired by what Castellani had been told by the fisherman, Vincenzo Musolino, who played the lead. The film was shot in the Southern Italian village of Boscotrecase, taking, the other actors - except for the female lead, Maria Fiore, but she too non-professional, like the others - from among the villagers themselves and letting the situations emerge through the spontaneous collaboration of one and all.

Once again, Renato Castellani showed a remarkable power of observation in catching the reality and the psychology of a popular world, but on this occasion far from the suburban slums in a Southern rural community in the vicinity of Naples. It is the story of a passionate and happy love affair between two penniless people, full however of determination which helps them overcome every mishap and every difficulty. Jobless, the young man in question works as a driver, then a soft-drink vendor, billposter and sexton. The love and joy of living of the young couple, against the background of a tragic poverty, harks back to the great tradition of the picaresque novel, in an uninterrupted sequence of little episodes, funny gags, perceptive observations of the human condition, in a love story constantly supported by the hope of the title. Maria Fiore as Carmela sketches the profile of a female figure that was long to be the center of attraction of the Italian-style film comedy, the figure of the girl shapely in build, sexy and provocative in manner, but essentially more serious and innocent than she appears.

3. Poor, Young and Good-Looking part one

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

In 1948, SOTTO IL SOLE DI ROMA (UNDER THE SUN OF ROME) inaugurated an important chapter in the new Italian-style film comedy. It was the work of a director who up till then seemed to move in the opposite direction from neo-realism: Renato Castellani (born in 1913). Formerly an assistant and script-writer for Mario Camerino, he made a name for himself during the war as a front-ranking representative of the refined and elegant school of a cinema of literary origins. His film UN COLPO DI PISTOLA (A PISTOL SHOT: 1941), was a delicate transpotion of the beautiful story by Pushkin.

Following the story of three youngsters, Ciro, Geppa and Iris (played by three non-professional actors: Oscar Blando, Francesco Golisano, Liliana Mancini), from the San Giovanni quarter of Rome, through the diary of one of them, Ciro, Castellani moves through the span of time dear to the neo-realists, from 1943, under the German occupation, to 1945, the post-war period. Without question, this film couldn't have come into being without the popular success, starting already with AVANTI, C'E POSTO! (COME ON, THERE'S ROOM!), of films related to the city of Rome and its dialect. But in AVANTI, C'E POSTO! (COME ON, THERE'S ROOM!), CAMPO DE' FIORI, L'ULTIMA CARROZZELLA (THE LAST CARRIAGE) and even in more recent comedies like L'ONOREVOLE ANGELINA (THE HONORABLE ANGELINA), the stories were about grownups, people with jobs, a specific social status. SOTTO IL SOLE DI ROMA (UNDER THE SUN OF ROME), instead, ushers in the subject matter of the very young, that new generation which grew up amidst the physical ruins of the bombardments and the moral ashes of the Fascist myth. Ciro, in the ups and downs of a complicated period, thinks of "making shift," that is of pulling through tough situations without risking too much, and can count on the loyal friendship of Geppa and the love of Liliana. Part "bully", or "bullo", as they say in Rome, that is flashy and overbearing, part hoodlum, with a very elastic, moral code, he ends up on the verge of delinquency by attempting a robbery. In the shoot-out that follows, his father, a night watchman, who gets involved accidentally, is killed. Ciro, faced with the tragedy, finally becomes a man, gets married, finds a regular job as a night watchman like his father. "Then I realized," Ciro says in the closing remark of the film, "who my father was. My father was the one who paid for everybody. Carefree youth was over. Now it's my turn to pay." This bitter conclusion sets the seal on a film that is, instead, full of gaiety. The director gives himself up with joy to the vital force of this instinctive working-class boy, and human sympathy even blurs his judgement. It is that unknown world of poor, uncouth, but cocky and good-looking youngsters, brought up in the ghettos of the suburban slums that would later find their literary and cinematographic muse in Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The film is well constructed, with a script written by, among others, Sergio Amidei, the principal author of ROMA, CITTA APERTA (ROME, OPEN CITY) and PAISA, and Emilio Cecchi, a discriminating man of letters who from 1930 on gave his support to talented young film-makers. While the fondness for exploring the world of the common people, shooting out-of-doors, the use of non-professional actors, are neo-realistic fixtures, Castellani rejected the instinct, the brilliant improvisation of a Rossellini and composed highly elaborate and carefully prepared shots.

In the succeeding E PRIMAVERA (IT'S SPRING) of 1949, written with Suso Cecchi D'Amico and Cesare Zavattini, the director transposed a story of infidelity (with bigamy, couple swapping and all that), typical of the old Parisian vaudeville, from its original bourgeois setting to a popular setting, enlarging moreover the geographic and linguistic framework of the new Italian-style comedy beyond Rome and the Rome dialect: the story in fact moves between Sicily and Milan and the leading character is Tuscan.

2. The Forties: The Season Of Neo-Realism part eight

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Many simple stories of simple folk, recapturing that fondness for the anti-hero which had been typical of Mario Camerini and Alessandro Blasetti in the '30s and '40s, were set against the background of post-war Rome. Alessandro Blasetti in PRIMA COMUNIONE [FIRST COMMUNION: 1950] tells about the hours preceding the religious ceremony of the title, which should be a peaceful family celebration. But the little communion girl's despotic father loses his temper because the white dress ordered for her is not ready and from incident to incident the tension mounts, completely destroying the idyllic atmosphere of the beginning. Written by Cesare Zavattini, the comedy is a ferocious attack on conventions and Aldo Fabrizi plays the lead with rage and authority. Zavattini provided Camerini with the story of MOLTI SOGNI PER LE STRADE [MANY DREAMS ON THE ROAD: 1948], in which a poor devil, assailed by debts, steals a car. But his wife thinks he has rented the car to take her for a ride and goes off with him. The improvised thief is unable to get the car to the "fence" and the deal goes up in smoke, so there's nothing to be done but to take the car back to the garage where it had been stolen. A charming little tale, typical of the pre-war Zavattini more than of the author of LADRI DI BICICLETTE [BICYCLE THIEVES]. It was Zavattini again who gave Gianni Franciolini (1910-1960) the idea for a particular film BUONGIORNO, ELEFANTE! [GOOD MORNING, ELEPHANT!: 1952], in which an Indian prince (played by Sabu), in order to return a favor done him by, a simple grade-school teacher (Vittorio De Sica), sends him a present from India: nothing less than an elephant. With all the imaginable troubles the poor teacher runs into trying to dispose of the cumbersome beast. The film remains one of the finest examples of a light sentimental comedy that succeeds in appealing to audiences without sacrificing a realistic portrayal of characters and setting.

2. The Forties: The Season Of Neo-Realism part seven

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

The most important name among these comedians in the period right after the war was that of Macario, undisputed star of the vaudeville theater and a well-known screen personality as of some ten years. Macario's typical characteristics - his innocence, his romantic tenderness, his incurable optimism - struck two script-writers at the beginning of their career, Steno and Mario Monicelli, as potential material for a new form of "Italian-style" comedy, removing the actor from the facile conventions of the farce and creating for him a more carefully pondered character which could become the symbol of the average Italian male. The result was three fairly good films, produced one after the other in the studios of Turin (the capital of Italian cinema at its birth) and directed by Carlo Borghesio (born in 1905): COME PERSI LA GUERRA [HOW I LOST THE WAR: 1947], L'EROE DELLA STRADA [THE HERO OF THE STREET: 1948], COME SCOPERSI L'AMERICA [HOW I DISCOVERED AMERICA: 1949]. Macario, with his moon face and big eyes, his lilting gait, was the common little man battered by the gales of history. In the first, he is the innocent little soldier at the front of a lost war, in the second a poor devil who tries to scrape a living after the war with jobs of all kinds, in the third he has emigrated to the United States to seek his fortune. Borghesio was not a great director but he knew his job and the three films, while not outstanding, do succeed in expressing a fragment or two of the reality of those days. They were a great success, especially the first. As to Steno and Monicelli, they were to return to the character in the films they later directed, finding their ideal actor for the part in Alberto Sordi.

2. The Forties: The Season Of Neo-Realism part six

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

It was not surprising, therefore, that producers thought of counteracting the influx of Hollywood film revues with Italian film revues linked, to be sure, to the popularity of a given comedian but most of all entrusted to the richness of the cast, the number of chorus girls, the quality of the scenery and choreography. After DOVE STA ZAZA? [WHERE'S ZAZA?: 1948] of Giorgio C. Simonelli, with Nino Taranto, and I POMPIERI DI VIGGIU [THE VIGGIU FIRE-BRIGADE: 1949] of Mario Mattoli, with Toto, the most ambitious attempt was represented by BOTTA E RISPOSTA [QUESTION AND ANSWER], directed in 1950 by highly respected writer and director Mario Soldati, and starring the Italian comics Taranto and Renato Rascel, the Frenchman Fernandel and the American Louis Armstrong, with the sophisticated choreography of Katherine Dunham. The film-revue genre failed, however, to get off the ground and almost immediately died out.

The popularity of the comedians remained so producers got the idea of making low-budget films to order for them, shot in haste and dumped onto the market. Every comedian who met with the slightest success in the music-hall was given his films: the above-mentioned Taranto and Rascel, Carlo Dapporto, Macario, Walter Chiari, Toto.

2. The Forties: The Season Of Neo-Realism part five

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

Meanwhile, certain basic features of neo-realism - shooting out in the open of the streets, working-class milieu, use of dialect - had by now entered the mainstream of Italian film-making. Anna Magnani, for example, returned to her role as an impetuous, aggressive and warm-hearted woman of the people beset by all the problems of post-war Rome in two rather mediocre but engaging films directed by Gennaro Righelli (1886-1949): ABBASSO LA MISERIA! [DOWN WITH POVERTY!: 1945] and ABBASSO LA RICCHEZZA! [DOWN WITH RICHES!: 1946]. Magnani risked, however, letting herself be type-cast had she not met the director of VIVERE IN PACE [LIVE IN PEACH]. For her, Luigi Zampa wrote (with Suso Cecchi D'Amico and Piero Tellini) and directed in 1947 L'ONOREVOLE ANGELINA [THE HONORABLE ANGELINA], the colorful and lively portrait of a woman from the suburban slum areas (these areas, known as borgate, grew up on the outskirts of Rome during Fascism and soon became the symbol of poverty and social ostracism). The wife of a police sergeant, Angelina, driven by the hunger of those difficult times, leads a riotous crowd of women to occupy a foodstore which turns out to be the heart of the black market. The success of the operation makes her the natural leader of the other mothers of the "borgata" in the vindication of a whole series of social claims, and in the end her name is even put up for Parliament. It may be pointed out that the film was made several decades before the feminist movement exploded in Italy.

Meanwhile, the nation's screens were invaded by the products of Hollywood, which returned after the long interruption of the war years. Hollywood presented not only new films but also those made over the last six or seven years. Standing out among the other genres was the musical, with the subdivisions into song-and-dance films (seperate numbers linked together by a vague story line) and musical comedies. At the same time in Italian theaters revues were all the rage, and were becoming more and more lavish and spectacular as well as sexy.

2. The Forties: The Season Of Neo-Realism part four

From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE
by Ernesto G. Laura - Compiled by A.N.I.C.A. (National Association of Motion Pictures and Affiliated Industries) Rome, Italy - Edited by CIES Soc. Coop. r.1 (Institute for the Promotion of Italian Motion Pictures Abroad) Rome, Italy under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment

But was it possible to introduce authentic comedy into the neo-realistic genre without betraying the spirit of it? That's what Luigi Zampa (born in 1905) succeeded in doing in 1946 with VIVERE IN PACE [LIVE IN PEACE].

Aldo Fabrizi was Uncle Tigna, a peaceful farmer who during the German occupation hid on his farm two Americans who had escaped from a concentration camp; Ronald, a war correspondent, and Joe, a black soldier. The script, written by Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Fabrizi, Piero Tellini and Zampa, follows the usual pattern of the sentimental comedy: there's a love affair between Ronald and Tigna's niece and a whole series of humorous strategems to keep the Germans and Fascists away from the cellar where the two refugees are hiding. But one evening Joe - unversed in Italian wine - gets drunk just when Hans, a German sergeant, appears. Fortunately, Hans gets drunk too and the two men fraternize without realizing the situation. The next day Hans deserts. The Nazis execute him and also kill Uncle Tigna for having sheltered two "enemies". The tragic ending does not prevent the entire film from being played for smiles, in a perfect balance between the basic tone of comedy and the dramatic events, and above all with complete respect for the historical reality and the humanity of the characters. VIVERE IN PACE [LIFE IN PEACE], starring, aside from Fabrizi, the American actors Gary Moore and John Kitzmiller, already seen in PAISA, was an enormous success all over the world and one of the films that opened the doors to international acclaim for Italian cinema. In 1947 the New York film critics named it the best foreign film of the year.