Country: Italy
Year: 1956
Duration: 101'
Luisa and Natale are in love and decide to get married, despite their money problems. First they go live in a crowded house with his relatives but this soon proves to be impossible. Luisa finds hospitality at the home of a lady where she works as a maid while Natale sleeps in a shed at the construction site where he works. When Luisa finds out that houses are being built without authorization out in the suburbs, she convinces Natale to take out a loan to buy the necessary building materials. But the house has be finished in one night, including the roof: this is the only way the police can’t force the inhabitants to leave their new home. “As soon as Zavattini told me the story I was immediately attracted by the two protagonists and the moral and polemical vein of the film. I accepted right away, like I had often enthusiastically accepted the stories Cesare had proposed to me before. He knows my tastes and I know my limits. One day, they asked him how our collaboration came about and he gave the right answer, ‘De Sica and I are like coffee and milk.’” Print belonging to the Emilia-Romagna Region, on permanent deposit at the Cineteca Nazionale, printed from Cineteca Nazionale material and subtitled in French by the Emilia-Romagna Region, as part of a more extensive project regarding 17 films written by Cesare Zavattini.
Biography
film director
Vittorio De Sica
Vittorio De Sica (Sora, Italy, 1901 - Neully-sur-Seine, Nanterre, France, 1974) began working as an amateur actor as a young boy and became a true star in the 1930s, in particular thanks to films by Mario Camerini like What Scoundrels Men Are!, Mister Max and Department Store. Alongside his career as an actor, he also became a director, debuting with Red Roses. He became one of the pillars of neorealism with films like Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves (both of which received an Oscar) and continued to make successful movies like Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
FILMOGRAFIA
Rose scarlatte (coregia/codirector Giuseppe Amato, mm, 1940), Maddalena... zero in condotta (1940), Teresa Venerdì (1941), I bambini ci guardano (1943), Sciuscià (1946), Ladri di biciclette (1948), Miracolo a Milano (1951), Umberto D. (1952), L’oro di Napoli (1954), Il tetto (1956), La ciociara (1960), Il giudizio universale (1961), Boccaccio ’70 (ep. La riffa, cm, 1962), Il boom (1963), Ieri, oggi, domani, (1963), Matrimonio all’italiana, (1964), Le streghe (ep. Una sera come le altre, cm, 1967), Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (1970), Lo chiameremo Andrea (1972), Una breve vacanza (1973), Il viaggio (1974).
Cast
& Credits
regia/director
Vittorio De Sica
soggetto, sceneggiatura/story, screenplay
Cesare Zavattini
fotografia/cinematography
Carlo Montuori
montaggio/film editing
Eraldo Da Roma
scenografia/production design
Gastone Medin
costumi/costume design
Fabrizio Carafa
musica/music
Alessandro Cicognini
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Giorgio Listuzzi (Natale Pilon), Gabriella Pallotta (Luisa), Gastone Renzelli (Cesare), Luisa Alessandri (la signora/Mrs Baj), Angelo Bigioni (il Maggiore/Major Baj), Aldo Boi (Luigi), Maria Di Fiori (Giovanna), Maria Di Rollo (Gina), Ferdinando Gerra (Francesco), Carolina Ferri (la moglie di Francesco/Francesco’s Wife), Emilia Martini (la madre di Luisa/Luisa’s Mother), Giuseppe Martini (il padre di Luisa/Luisa’s Father), Maria Sittore (la madre di Natale/Natale’s Mother), Angelo Visentin (il padre di Natale/Natale’s Father)
produttori/producers
Vittorio De Sica, Marcello Girosi
