Italian Cinema Today

Giulietta Masina  gives a forceful performance in Carlo Lizzani and Massimo Mida’s 1952   suspenseful murder mystery, “Ai margini della metropoli” (At the Edge of the City).  Masina plays Gina, the devoted wife of Mario (Michel Jourdin), an unemployed peasant accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Marcella. The layered story and brilliantly written screenplay show a side of 1950s Rome that we rarely see in Post-WWII films but existed for the vast poverty-stricken population. The subject deals with the unspoken discrimination against those living in camps and land-shares who did not benefit from the post-war economic boom. A young, vibrant Massimo Girotti portrays a torn defense attorney who gets emotionally invested in the case, having a gut feeling that his client is innocent while the evidence continues to pile up against him. Gina goes to great lengths to track down the alleged witnesses and call them out on their false testimony. The entire film comes together in...

There couldn’t have been a more perfect couple than Lucia Bosè and Raf Vallone in Giuseppe De Santis’ 1952 “Roma 11:00.”  A tragic story based on true events, the film follows several young women in post-WWII Rome as they answer a job listing for a typist. When 200 women are in line on one staircase over several floors, a crack leads to the collapse of the entire staircase. Dozens were injured and one was killed. The tragedy spoke to the poverty and desperation that existed for so many Italians in the early 1950s before the ‘58 industrial boom began.  Cesare Zavattini was one of the screenwriters. Elio Petri was the assistant director who interviewed many of the victims and cast a few in supporting roles. In addition to Bosè and Vallone, the film stars Carla Del Poggio, Massimo Girotti, Maria Grazia Francia, Lea Padovani and Delia Scala. The film is set in Largo Circense 37, while in reality the collapse took place in via Savoia 31, in the Salario district, on J...