lchadbou-326-26592 Review of Italiani brava gente

Italiani brava gente (1964)

Impressive WWII Epic By Underrated Italian Neo-Realist

[7/10 · 24 August 2014]

"Italiano Brava Gente" the original title of this film (literally, Italian man good people) is what a Russian says, an hour into the story, when his partisans beg their WWII Fascist enemy to lend them a doctor to help an injured fighter. Because it required an international collaboration, including participation by Hollywood producer Joseph Levine, to make this epic, the doctor is one of several leading roles played by American actors, in this case Peter Falk, who despite dubbing of his memorable voice into Italian, gives the most striking characterization. The movie was directed by Giuseppe De Santis, an important figure in the history of neo-realism who is unfortunately not as well known as his more prolific colleagues De Sica, Visconti, or Rossellini. In a series of episodes, such as the one mentioned with the doctor, all drawn from authentic military memoirs, De Santis who also co-wrote brings across the overriding theme that the common Italian soldier, skeptical about his government's attack on the Soviet Union, has actually more sympathy for, and more in common with, the Russian peasants and workers on the other side than with Mussolini's supposed allies the Germans. In one scene an Italian soldier who likes the Communist anthem The Internationale actually plays it on his harmonica which leads to the Russians singing along- a moment comparable to the famous one in "Casablanca" where the Marseillaise is sung in defiance of the Nazis. In contrast, there is an elite group of shock troops, called the "Superarditi," brought in to reinvigorate Il Duce's assault, and the role of their balding, crippled, fanatic officer is here played by another U.S. actor, Arthur Kennedy. I watched this movie partly as an homage to the recently deceased Russian actress, Tatiana Samoilova, who is prominently billed but in the longest subtitled version I've been able to see (137 minutes) has only a couple of big scenes toward the end, as the woman one of the deserting Italians hides with underground; after the Germans, with whom it is mentioned she had been fraternizing, have started their hectic retreat, she is afraid of being caught by her fellow Soviets. While we had a brief glimpse of her with a German earlier, it seems that some of her footage may be among what was cut, when the movie was edited down from its original full length of 156 minutes. While there are a number of vivid images in this film, the climax, in which Cossacks mounted on horses hurtle by against the remaining enemy, is especially impressive.