I concur with my colleague Italian Gerry's typically knowledgeable review and would only add a few things. A decade before they teamed up to work wonders with their first neo realist films, the charming young De Sica (as light comedy star) and the socially conscious Zavattini (as writer) collaborated here for the first time. The film made an impact on 20th Century Fox boss Zanuck who read the Variety review arguing the film could be remade, and done better, as a terrific American production, so he bought the rights. (What goes around comes around: Italians had been savvy to the appeal of Depression era US comedies like It Happened One Night and now Hollywood would copy an Italian version of such a movie.) The film has much appeal still today for its lively rhythm and colorful populism though the caricatures of the assorted bums who are suddenly treated well by the bourgeoisie because people think one of them might be rich, teeter on being cutesy and condescending. Interesting that one of the big showpieces is a banquet for the beggars held under a circus tent, which anticipates the famous parody of the Last Supper in Bunuel's Virdiana 25 years later. Bunuel is under no illusions about sentimentalizing or idealizing the poor, in his scathing viewpoint they are just as bad as everyone else.
Review of I'll Give a Million
