Miracle in Milan (1951) User Reviews

a wonderful film--one of De Sica's best

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 13 August 2005]

This is a really strange film--and that is NOT a bad thing. It is a combination of a neo-realistic film about the homeless AND a fairy tale. I'm sure that some may find this movie a bit too strange, but I loved it. Once again, this director brings together a wonderful cast of everyday people (not actors) and gets a great ensemble-type performance. Although not nearly as sad as Umberto D, both movies have a very similar point to make--this one just does it in a very absurdist way. Ignore the cheesy special effects--after all, it was made in the early 1950s and special effects aren't terribly important anyway (or at least they shouldn't be in films). Instead, just sit back and enjoy the very strange and silly ride. Unless you are a total curmudgeon, you'll have a ball.

By the way, since I first reviewed this film, I have seen another DeSica directed film that is an absolute must-see and that is THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US. While not a fantasy or light in spirit like MIRACLE IN MILAN, a great film nevertheless.

Weird and wonderful step away from Neorealism by Vittorio de Sica and Cesare Zavattini

[zetes · 9/10 · 8 June 2002]

Perhaps the last film you would expect to come from Vittorio de Sica and Cesare Zavattini (who wrote the novel on which this film is based). It's a neorealist fantasy, kind of an oxymoron, really. An old woman finds a baby in her cabbage patch and raises him as her own son. After a few years, the baby is a young boy (named Toto) and the adoptive mother is dying. He goes to an orphanage and, when he finally turns 18, he leaves. Immediately, he finds that he has no home. Toto is optimistic, though, and won't let anything get him down. A man steals his valise, and instead of getting angry over it, Toto becomes his friend and goes and stays with him in a small shantytown. Toto takes some initiative and organizes the many homeless living in the area and they build a better shantytown. Soon, the landowner is trying to sell this plot of land, and the citizens of the shantytown have to protect themselves. After many attempts, the owner mounts a force of police to get rid of the homeless. At this point, the film becomes full-fledged fantasy (before this it was more comedic/fantastic melodrama in the style of Charlie Chaplin). This stuff is so weird and shocking that it's probably best for others to see it for themselves. It's quite amazing, and very funny. There are objections you could raise about the plot of Miracle in Milan, most certainly. Fellini and Visconti were greatly criticized when they started to stray from Neorealism. I think I read this was widely criticized at the time of its release. At this point, though, it's so enjoyable - I loved it very much. It might be my favorite of Vittorio de Sica's films, although Umberto D and The Bicycle Thieves come very, very close. 10/10.

A Magical Feel-Good Film

[VonCouch · 9/10 · 6 July 2010]

I just recently watched De Sica's Miracle in Milan and I must say it's a tragedy this film isn't more widely accessible. The film follows the curiously magical exploits of a grown up orphan who has just left his orphanage for the first time. His unstoppable optimism finally brings him to a shantytown outside of Milan. He helps to build the town into a thriving community, which soon comes under the fire of the property's owner. Through a miracle from the heavens, our optimistic orphan sets to help his fellow vagrants with their lives and their homes.

I'm not normally one for dopey family films, so I was very happy to enjoy this. It's not dopey, it's not sappy and it's not overly sentimental. The story is told with a gentle touch that De Sica is such a master with. The film is sweet, good-hearted and touching without ever relying on the corny or the melodramatic.

All in all, this film leaves you with a heart-warming feeling that only a poet like De Sica could give you. A sure recommendation.

For True Film Lovers Only

[albertocrienzi · 10/10 · 19 September 2007]

The snobs and pseudo experts consider it "a far cry from De Sica's best" The ones suffering from a serious lack of innocence will find a problem connecting to this masterpiece. De Sica spoke in a very direct way. His Italianness doesn't have the convoluted self examination of modern Italian filmmakers, or the bitter self parody of Pietro Germi, the pungent bittersweetness of Mario Monicelli, the solemnity of Visconti or the cold observation of Antonioni. De Sica told us the stories like a father sitting at the edge of his children's bed before they went to sleep. There is no attempt to intellectualize. Miracolo A Milano and in a lesser degree Il Giudizio Universale are realistic fairy tales, or what today we call magic realism. The film is a gem from beginning to end and Toto is the sort of character that you accept with an open heart but that, naturally, requires for you to have a heart. Cinema in its purest form. Magnificent.

A Chaplinesque masterpiece

[raskimono · 10/10 · 13 August 2005]

This obscure de Sica delivers the goods. And it is said "the meek shall inherit the earth." This tale of classes on the surface but really an allegory for all the homeless people that populated Europe after the great war. They are homeless but cheerful, in a societies too impoverished and selfish to care for or acknowledge them, footmats for the Italian carpetbaggers. de Sica chooses to tell it as a fairy tale, a Cinderella story. I have not read the book it is based on so I cannot foresay if the deus ex machina is the construct of the writer or Vittorio. It begins with the words, "Once upon a time..." to exemplify the timelessness of its tale, for the story could be set anywhere and everywhere. Caricature sketches of the aristocracy that cut to the bone, whimsical nature of the homeless especially when they begin to grant their wishes and an ending right out of a Spielberg picture makes this boulange a delight for all. De Sica's most accessible picture is also one of his best. Abandoning neo-realism, he always dallied between that and pure good old film-making, he creates a movie that breaks the heart and at the same time fills it with the yearning of hope that one needs to continue leaving in this world. Gracias Vittorio! Gracias! Gracias!!! Gracias!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charming movie with a weird third act turn that doesn't work so well

[blott2319-1 · 6/10 · 20 April 2020]

Miracle in Milan is a movie that has one of those heart-warming characters with an indomitable spirit who brightens the lives of everyone around him. I quite liked how Francesco Golisano played this character because he never acts as though this is a struggle for him, he simply is kind and optimistic as a part of his nature. The film starts off somewhat comical, but otherwise perfectly normal as the people living homeless in Milan seek a way to survive. I was charmed by this whole section of the film, and seeing the way that the human spirit fought to live a normal life despite not having all the modern conveniences that money provides. There is also a fun contrast when we see these poor people interacting with the rich and privileged people who want to take possession of the land. A meeting in the big city was one of the most humorous scenes in the film, as we see these homeless people in the most over-the-top opulence.

The turn for the film comes later when a magical element is added to the story. This is where things got weird. I liked the idea of empowering our hero in a unique way, but his new-found ability kind of shifted the tone and even the plot of the film. Suddenly, it was looking at how greed could entrap even those who once knew how to live with nothing. But it never felt the script fully addressed how damaging this behavior was to the people as they received everything that they thought would make life better. Also, the original plot is still happening, but it seems the importance of it is diminished. I wouldn't mind a kind of Monkey's Paw story, where someone is given magical powers that end up ruining life when it was supposed to help, but it is not the plot I was invested in from the outset. Then the ending is extremely odd and leaves me with more questions than answers. I definitely liked elements of Miracle in Milan, but if it remained focused in one direction or the other I would have enjoyed it more.

Magnificent Modern Miracle

[NYLux · 10/10 · 6 August 2009]

This film is like an allegory of the gospel. It has such direct honesty and innocence you can not possibly believe it was made after the world war when Italy was ravaged and devastated, and was filled with a huge homeless, impoverished population. It is a monument to the best qualities of the human spirit, as well as to the endless creative resources of that land of inspiration.

Toto is a character like Doestoevisky's "Idiot", a modern Christ finding his way in a big city. He is goodness and purity fortified by love, and his acts change the people he encounters, as much as the miracle working dove. The story is told in a natural manner and simple style, yet imbued with a magic that is almost a premonition of Fellini's surrealist fantasies. It is one of the most inspiring, uplifting movies ever made.

picture of a state of soul

[Vincentiu · 9 April 2013]

lovely. it is first word about this film. fantastic, tender, gentle, dream, it is a sentimental gem. and this is important for a gray , cold world. parable, social manifesto in sweet colors, fairy tale, it is a piece of clay for its viewer. because it is difficult to define it. so, essential is the warm emotion. the performance of Emma Gramatica. and extraordinary Toto in which the young Francesco Golisano gives all pure nuances of life joy. after many years from first meeting, it is not exactly one of my favorites but ideal drug for gloomy days. a different de Sica, it is shining and naive. or, only, isle for the short escape after stressful moments. a kind of Life is wonderful but with little substantial dose of miracle flavor.maybe, a form of Charlot universe slice. like return in childhood womb.

Enough charm to help see past the flaws

[tomgillespie2002 · 6/10 · 19 August 2016]

The great Italian actor/director/writer Vittorio De Sica is probably best known for his neo-realism offerings, particularly the tear- jerking masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948). His next film, Miracle in Milan, begins with the title 'once upon a time...', making it clear enough that this is a step towards more fantastical fare. While still exploring themes of class divide and the humility of the poor, Miracle is pure fairytale, starting out with a baby found in a basket and climaxing with a gathering of our homeless heroes flying away on broomsticks.

The ageing Lolotta (Emma Gramatica) finds a newborn baby in her cabbage patch and adopts him, naming him Toto. When the old lady dies, the young Toto is taken to an orphanage where he grows up (to be played by Francesco Golisano) and emerges an optimistic and happy-go-lucky young man. Shortly after he discovers that other members of society don't share his chirpy outlook on life, he is robbed by a homeless man but takes pity on him, and in return Toto is shown to a shantytown on the outskirts of Milan. Fitting in immediately, Toto and his new friends discover that the land on which they dwell holds oil, and soon enough the rich fat cats descend on the outcasts.

There is little subtlety to Miracle in Milan, and De Sica is quick to stamp his own views on a society that shun the poor, portraying the rich as fat, cigar-chomping tyrants, while the poor are a collection of likable oddballs. There are many wonderful moments, such as Toto overseeing the renovation of the shantytown and the scene in which the homeless, Tati-esque, huddle together to warm up in a slim ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds. It's also on- the-nose and slightly grating, complete with obscene caricatures and some comedic scenes that simply do not work. We are left with the message of the corrupting power of wealth, and while this is a familiar topic in the realm of neo-realism, there's enough charm on show to help see past the flaws.

Cheerful and refreshing

[miagy · 9/10 · 23 March 2005]

This movie was my first touch with Mr Sica so I really didn't know what to expect. But what I saw just broke all my expectations - in a good way.

The storyline is not complex and shows us a life of found boy- orphan and particularly his connection into the community of poor people who together built themselves a hood of simple metal plate houses. This little city in another city lives own life and things are going fine. But one day there is a water resource found and a rich nobles man is getting interested in the buying the place. But as the title of the movie hints - there is a miracle taking place. Our character gets a wonder dove from his dead mother. What is he going to do to protect his friends and all built city as well?

It was just a masterpiece of natural comedy. There is shown the behavior of poor people and how money and property can talk and play with people. Also many funny moments and scenes are included - at the beginning with the spot where sun is shining and many more.

So according to the fact that I m not a comedy lover you should see this movie because I liked it much

I

Sentimental...and wonderful

[Daniel Karlsson · 7/10 · 8 January 2004]

This film is like a 1950-version of Ettore Scola's Brutti sporchi e cattivi. Less sex and less realism, but a tale with great humanism and warmth. I wouldn't call this a neo-realistic picture. It's very sentimental and more like a fairy tale, and should probably be classed as a comedy, although it deals with serious matters (a little like Chaplin or 1930-comedy). Typical Italian though, very emotional, and hard to resist except for a stone cold person. The sentimentalism is a letdown, although this picture was not meant to be a realistic drama. It's not a masterpiece like Umberto D or The Bicycle Thief. But it is a lovable and hilarious comedy, with good music.

7/10

Straight poignant social realism disguised in a fairy tale

[clanciai · 10/10 · 25 June 2021]

This is perhaps the one of Vittorio de Sica's films that contains the most and greatest poetry. Everything here is poetic, the main character himself being something of an angel, the tramps of the ramshackle slum with their very peculiar lives of their own, just their way of celebrating the sunshine and keeping warm when it shines through the smog, and even the way the industrial tycoons are treated, they want to tear down the miserable ramshackle slum of the tramps, but it's not that easy, since our friend the orphan has mysterious friends and contacts on the other side, and his optimism proves not just incurable but even invincible. This film must have meant a lot to Fellini, for many scenes here remind you of later great scenes of Fellini's, and most of all the touch of intimacy with those worst off in society. At the same time this is a great comedy, and there are constant hilarious surprises all the way, culminating in the glorious finale around the cathedral - whoever could have expected such a magnificent crowning triumph of such a hopeless case?

A movie like a fairy tale.

[RodrigAndrisan · 6/10 · 6 February 2021]

There's something fellinian about this De Sica. The dove is like an enchanted lamp of Alladin or the goose that makes golden eggs. Sadness, much sadness, mixed with some humor, because only humor can make you survive in a cruel world, where everything is unjust. Except for Paolo Stoppa, the other actors they are virtually unknown. The best scene is when the two rich people bid and start barking. A film for adults with a soul as a child. I don't consider it a masterpiece, De Sica has other much better films.

Biting satire? Missed opportunity.

[syd-27 · 4/10 · 4 October 1999]

In its depiction of a miserable Milanese underclass, this film was probably quite revealing in its day. However, I get the feeling that neorealism was never really director De Sica's bag, since here he decided to try and create some sort of modern fable centring around a boy that had been found in a cabbage patch by an old dear in the country. After spending most of his childhood in an orphanage, Toto ends up living in a shantytown in Milan. He organises the inhabitants into community action, and keeps their spirits up by swanning around with an annoyingly constant smile on his face and testing them on their times tables. That nobody tells him where to stick his times tables is beyond me, as these people have far more important things to think about, like where the next Pot Noodle is going to come from. Anyway, De Sica then uses a sublimely subtle dramatic device in order to highlight exactly why these poor sods are where they are. It's all down to capitalism of course, and in order to illustrate this, he has the miserables discover a fountain of oil on their land. Brilliant! To his credit, though, by this time he has given up on making a serious film, and the capitalists appear as severe caricatures, all fur coats and cigars. They want that land, but our mathematical hero will not support such nonsense. By a bizarre stroke of luck, his old, deceased guardian from the cabbage patch days appears in the sky and gives him a magic dove. He uses it to shower gifts on his mates, who prove just as greedy as the cigar men. I reckon this film was a missed opportunity. To address the theme of poverty , as not many film-makers had done until then, and then get caught up in a fairy tale, to me seems a bit daft. How come 'great' directors get away with child-like plot turns like the ones we see here? Hans Christian Anderson would probably have balked at the idea of having the poor folk flying off over the Milan Duomo and on to a higher place on broomsticks. De Sica, however, is proclaimed as a genius for this. Surely the fact that these people are so poor, that their faith is unswerving, and that miracles never happen to them, is enough for any story-teller to work on.

Entertaining Neo-Realist Fantasy with Brechtian Echoes

[l_rawjalaurence · 9/10 · 12 July 2016]

MIRACLE IN MILAN has a straightforward plot: young Toto (Francesco Golisano) is discovered in a cabbage patch by an old woman (Emma Gramatica) who brings him up as her son. She passes away, and the boy is sent to an orphanage. Released from the institution as an adolescent, Toto embraces a positive view of life; and becomes involved in a large-scale project to set up a shanty-town on the outskirts of Milan. They fall foul of the landowner Mobbi (Guglielmo Barnabò) who tries every possible means to evict them using the police force, water-cannon, bullets and the like. Toto and his friends resist them with the help of the miracle suggested by the title and end up going to a possibly happier world.

Director Vittorio de Sica and his cinematographer G.R. Aldo capture the atmosphere of postwar Milan with its deserted streets, ruined buildings and outwardly cold population in the depths of winter. Horses and carts still run up and down the streets; cars are a rarity except among the filthy rich. Poverty is rife: many homeless people wander up and down ransacking the rubbish-heaps and making do with very little, even half-empty bottles of alcohol thrown to them from passing cars.

The distinction between rich and poor is highly pronounced, as one might expect from Cesare Zavattini, who rote the novel on which the film is based, as well as collaborating with de Sica. Yet MIRACLE IN MILAN differs from other de Sica movies in its use of quasi- Brechtian devices - for example, street signs changed into multiplication sums for the benefit of the street children, or obvious signs denoting the symbolic meaning of the shanty-town. The musical numbers (by Alessandro Cicognini) attest to a bright future for the poor; not that they need much. They would be happy with just a crust of bread and a roof over their heads.

Stylistically speaking the film has several antecedents, as well as the Italian neo-realist tradition. The sight of the shanty-town residents marching triumphantly down their streets singing about their dreams recalls British musicals such as SING AS WE GO (1934), as well as the better-known Depression-era Hollywood musicals like 42nd STREET (1933). The group ethic that binds Toto and his friends together has further British antecedents in PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949), another comedy set in the bomb-damaged wastes of a big city.

MIRACLE IN MILAN is a highly entertaining piece with an upbeat ending, drawing our attention to community values as well as placing our trust in our families. There are some good jokes at the expense of the bourgeois Mobbi, including one where he and his co- conspirator are reduced to barking at one another like a pair of unruly dogs. De Sica's social criticisms are as applicable today as they were sixty-plus years ago; one can only hope that people experiencing similar privations will be as optimistic about their future as Toto.

THE FULL BRILLIANCE OF ART

[ivanpele · 10/10 · 26 April 2019]

The best movie of all time. Masterpiece of movie art.

A movie like no other - far cry from de Sica's best

[romdal · 7/10 · 8 February 2007]

De Sica is becoming one of my favorite directors, but this one was a hit-and-miss for me. A grinning idiot youth becomes the leader of a community of illegal settlers in a deserted area outside Milano. It is a detailed and sparkling story of the innocent poor masses, complete with evil capitalists and trigger-happy police forces, but slowly it evolves into a magic fantasy tale, as the boy wonder Toto develops unlimited superhero powers. I had it up to here with the ever-smiling Toto after 10 minutes, and when the magic took over, I was left in the dust. There were so many wonderfully orchestrated shots, so many good characters among the settlers, that I kept thinking it was a waste the movie wasn't more serious with its material. The coupling of neorealism and fantasy comes out more as an experiment of the "look-what-we-can-also-do-mum" sort than as a fully developed piece of work/art.

Hobohemia

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 11 August 2007]

If you have trouble suspending disbelief then this isn't for you. Consider: a woman already in late middle age finds a newborn baby in a cabbage patch and raises it as her own. Think about it; she makes no attempt to locate the mother, who may well be a confused teenager in need of medical treatment and seemingly no one from the Italian equivalent of Social Services makes any attempt to put the baby into 'care' (no Social Services? now I KNOW it's a fantasy). Before you know it young Toto is ten or so and his adoptive mother dies leaving him to the orphanage from which he emerges a HAPPY man who loves everybody. In nothing flat he has not only given his suitcase to the man who stole it from him but organised the local homeless into bona fide Shantytown residents and for an encore he leads them in a fight against capitalism in the shape of the businessman who buys the land on which the Shantytown stands when oil is discovered there. This wants some swallowing without the subsequent 'miracles' beginning with Toto's dead mother (the old lady who raised him rather than his biological one) appearing to him and handing him a dove which doubles as a magic wand allowing him to grant modest wishes and a finale in which the hobos fly away to a better place located presumably somewhere over the rainbow.

On the other hand the film is up to here with Charm and is easy to surrender to. On balance a small masterpiece.

Pigeons

[tedg · 1 November 2008]

This is one of those projects that when you consider each piece, you know it is a mess, essentially worthless. The story is alarmingly close to an afterschool morality play. The style is deliberately confusing if you know the filmmaker and the neorealist dogma of his work and others of the school. The camera is kept in a fixed location, often stationary, and though there are some special effects, the cinematography is less than ordinary. The acting and presentation is after the style of silent films. The thing has little coherence and is comically episodic. There is an offensively artificial sweetness to it.

Yet, when you put it all together, it works well enough for you to not be annoyed by it. And that's pretty remarkable because the coherence is in the parts, not within any part (like story) which is of less importance than the whole. This story actually seems intent on destroying the relevance of story. A statue comes alive; a mother's love is unfinished; characters in a shantytown become visible and not. A magical power alters much of what matters, but with no causal result. Oil is discovered, but no one cares.

Yet it works. As a historical artifact, it matters because it seems to have released the Italians from the dreadful rut they were in and allowed Fellini to do his turn at magical narrative folding. Other than that, I cannot recommend it but for the experience of seeing the value of imagining each bit with the same character and having the film work just on that coherence.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

10 For Creativity, 5 For Story Telling

[MovieGuy-10924 · 7/10 · 11 May 2022]

This is a wild movie, but it didn't really get weird until his dead mother gave him a magical dove that grants wishes from Heaven. It is very creative, different, and fun. It deserves praise for pure inventiveness. It also is filled with such an optimistic attitude throughout.

I don't think, however, that it carries the message that Vittorio de Sica intended. Instead of the message that all people are equal, I believe the message portrayed is that even with a magical wishing dove, people will still fail to do what is truly in their best interest.

Brunella Bova is as sweet as can be and is a pleasure to watch on the screen.

In sheer creativeness, this film is an 11. In telling a story with a message, I think it's a 5. I gave it a 7. I enjoyed it much more the second time I watched it.

Miracle in world cinema

[leoperu · 10/10 · 6 January 2013]

Superlatives are in order when referring to "Miracolo a Milano" : it's not "a little gem" but a sort of crown jewel of world humanistic cinema. I personally value this comedy more than De Sica's/Zavattini's more serious/famous works such as "Sciuscia", "Ladri di biciclette" or "Umberto D.". So much fondness, warmth, understanding, positiveness - and cinematic bravura, intelligence, taste, wit .... Timeless ! Whenever I watch it, I find the movie's ending brilliantly ambiguous : on the one hand liberating and hopeful, on the other hand ultimately sad, because that joyful migration cannot lead anywhere but "anywhere out the world" ....

Arrow's blu-ray offers the best print I ever saw of this cathartic masterpiece on home video format.

Unforgettable Fantasy

[sconnacher-51408 · 7/10 · 25 May 2023]

The movie was a big surprise. The characters - from the optimistic and generous Toto, to the self-important fortune tellers, to the fugitive hiding in the funeral procession - were realistic yet idiosyncratic. We had caricatures of inept police and greedy tycoons facing downtrodden yet proud townspeople. The wry touches of humor on all sides managed to humanize everybody, for better or worse.

The fantasy scenes were absolutely mesmerizing and wildly imaginative. A statue comes to life, top hats multiply in the crowd, the townspeople blow away smoke, spirits visit and chase each other from above, and many more. It is like watching a Gabriel Garcia-Marquez story on the black-and-white screen.

This is one movie that I will not forget, meant in the best possible sense. What an achievement.

Odd Coupling.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 22 November 2023]

Neo' meets Sur' in realism in Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan. Taking a sharp turn from his grounded in verismo masterpieces (Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief) De Sica enters into the world of fantasy in this farfetched tale of poverty and capitalism that somehow finds itself on the side of both socialism and spiritualism at the same time.

An elderly woman finds a baby abandoned in her garden decides to raise him and calls him Toto. When she passes away he's sent to an orphanage and released as a teen full of idealism in a challenging world that does not feel the same way. He soon finds himself in a homeless camp where his enthusiasm becomes infectious and the inhabitants make an effort to spiff the place up. Big business buys the property however and Toto and the community are soon under siege. Attaining power by way of his angelic foster mother he then begins to grant wishes to the poor who soon turn greedy.

Miracle is filled with poignant moments such as the old woman's discovery of the baby and the funeral cortege followed by the child as the only mourner through a gloomy Milan, comically joined for a moment by a criminal on the run. The dirt poor poverty of the camp is also a scene of many comic moments with the dispossessed running for sunlight or a man consuming a chicken he won in the lottery before an appreciative and very hungry crowd.

Unlike Bunuel (Nazarin, Viridiana) De Sica treatment of the poor is benign. They are a harmless and happy breed who sing a song that smacks of International as it asks for little. The capitalists are broadly caricatured in top hat and fur lined coats, the military humorously held off from overrunning the camp.

Evoking ET, the film closes with a bravura Deus Ex Machina that whitewashes the whole situation which depending upon your mood might make or break the picture. A provocatively light comedy dealing with poverty by way of pro religious and pro communist posturing.

Ice desk

[catpantry · 3/10 · 9 March 2020]

A desk floats on top of the ocean, the tips of its four legs bolstered to the water surface. How is that happening? Sometimes things look perfect when a bunch of strong decisions are made. In this case they dont.

Positively Chaplinesque

[rdoyle29 · 8/10 · 10 February 2023]

An elderly woman finds a baby in her cabbage patch and he grows up to be Francesco Golisano. He ends up living with tramps in a vacant lot and uses his innate charm and organizational abilities to help build an intricate shanty town that improves all of their lives. Conflict arises when a wealthy business man buys the lot and wants to shove them all out.

There's something very appealing and Chaplinesque about this film with it's lovable tramp lead, it's intricate sets and "the little guy vs rich guy" plot. I really loved the first two acts. I wasn't quite so taken with the final part that delves deeply into fantasy, but it's still a lovely little film.