Peddlin' in Society

PEDDLIN' IN SOCIETY (the original title means "Down with Wealth!") is a tour-de-force for Anna Magnani as an erstwhile fruit vendor who finds herself in the lap of luxury when her black-market business pays off more handsomely. She leases an elegant villa from an impoverished count (the superb Vittorio De Sica), wears the most ridiculous hat ever seen in the Italian cinema, and finds out the hard way that instant wealth brings her neither class nor esteem but instead makes her easy prey for the unscrupulous. This thoroughly lightweight dramatic farce is a counterpoint to some of Magnani's much better films of that period: OPEN CITY, AMORE, and L'ONOREVOLE ANGELINA. Director Gennaro Righelli keeps it all going entertainingly. The film is a follow-up to ABBASSO LA MISERIA ("Down with Misery") which he had made with Magnani the year before.

The main attraction of the film is to watch Anna Magnani and Vittorio de Sica act together, and they alone raise the film to some level of classical comedy. It is really a tragi-comedy, because Anna Magnani is outrageously rich from her black market business during the war, and she learns the hard way that money does not bring esteem or respectability but only makes you vulnerable to parasites and vultures. There are some hilarious ironic scenes in the den of the so called aristocrats, all frauds, who cheat her out of all her money by their sanctimoniously affected manners to cajole and trap her in their racket, they are all splendid caricatures of fake snobs and adulating freaks. Anna Magnani herself dominates the film by her overwhelmingly splendid acting, going from something of a queen and primadonna of smugglers to the real down to earth Anna Magnani with a firm realistic grip on the facts of life. The other great comedian of this film is John Garson as the fat Californian soldier Lucky Brandy (!), who adorns the film by his fluent Italian with a very American accent making it hilarious, especially for Italians, probably. Vittorio de Sica adds style to the film as the count whose palace she is renting and who also has to face sinister facts of reality. In the final scene the film suddenly turns romantic and beautiful, enhanced in charm by some lovely street musicians, illustrating the return to basic reality from the false illusions of a luxurious but meaningless and superficial life of delusions.