Maddalena... zero in condotta (1940) DVD-R
Starring Vittorio De Sica, Vera Bergman, Carla Del Poggio, Irasema Dilián, Amelia Chellini
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Print: Black and White
Runtime:79 min
Genre: Comedy
Before he created the postwar neo-realist classics SHOESHINE, THE BICYCLE THIEF and UMBERTO D., Vittorio De Sica had a very different career as a handsome leading man of stage and screen, starring in conventional romances and dramas. When he began to age out of such parts (though he never gave up acting), he decided to try his luck behind the camera. This 1940 comedy, his first solo directorial credit, could hardly be farther from the gritty studies of poverty and desperation for which he would become world-famous; it's a classic fascist-era "white telephone" film, the term applied to glossy, frivolous entertainments that did their job of distracting the public from less pleasant matters during "Il Duce" Benito Mussolini's reign. Adapted from a Hungarian play, it features De Sica himself as a Viennese businessman who becomes smitten with the pretty schoolgirl Maddalena, though perhaps to ease his double burden as both star and director, his character doesn't appear until nearly half-an-hour in. The mistaken-identity narrative hinges on a triangle between de Sica's Alfredo, the reckless teenager and a young schoolteacher played by gorgeous German-born Vera Bergman. Cast as the precocious Maddalena was Carla del Poggio, the director's discovery , who was just fifteen years old at the time. She later married another famed Italian director, Alberto Lattuada, around the same time she appeared in Federico Fellini's VARIETY LIGHTS (which Lattuada co-wrote and co-directed). While films like this fell out of favor after "Il Duce" found himself on the losing side of World War II, its glamorous art-deco fluff now has the escapist charm of 1930s Hollywood screwball comedies.
Starring Vittorio De Sica, Vera Bergman, Carla Del Poggio, Irasema Dilián, Amelia Chellini
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Print: Black and White
Runtime:79 min
Genre: Comedy
Before he created the postwar neo-realist classics SHOESHINE, THE BICYCLE THIEF and UMBERTO D., Vittorio De Sica had a very different career as a handsome leading man of stage and screen, starring in conventional romances and dramas. When he began to age out of such parts (though he never gave up acting), he decided to try his luck behind the camera. This 1940 comedy, his first solo directorial credit, could hardly be farther from the gritty studies of poverty and desperation for which he would become world-famous; it's a classic fascist-era "white telephone" film, the term applied to glossy, frivolous entertainments that did their job of distracting the public from less pleasant matters during "Il Duce" Benito Mussolini's reign. Adapted from a Hungarian play, it features De Sica himself as a Viennese businessman who becomes smitten with the pretty schoolgirl Maddalena, though perhaps to ease his double burden as both star and director, his character doesn't appear until nearly half-an-hour in. The mistaken-identity narrative hinges on a triangle between de Sica's Alfredo, the reckless teenager and a young schoolteacher played by gorgeous German-born Vera Bergman. Cast as the precocious Maddalena was Carla del Poggio, the director's discovery , who was just fifteen years old at the time. She later married another famed Italian director, Alberto Lattuada, around the same time she appeared in Federico Fellini's VARIETY LIGHTS (which Lattuada co-wrote and co-directed). While films like this fell out of favor after "Il Duce" found himself on the losing side of World War II, its glamorous art-deco fluff now has the escapist charm of 1930s Hollywood screwball comedies.
| Product Name | Maddalena... zero in condotta (1940) DVD-R |
|---|---|
| This item is returnable | No |
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