'Open City' at Lower Mall Pictures Acrid Record of German Forces in Italy

BY W. WARD MARSH “Open City"

Lower Mall

"OPEN CITY, drama directed by Roberto Rosselini. Screen play by Senzo Amidel and F. Fellini, Story by Amidel. An Italian picture imported and released by Mayer-Burstyn and played by the following cast: Don Pietro.....

Pina.................................................Anna Magnani

Manfredi.. Marcello...............

„Aldo Fabrizi Marcello Pacifero Vito Annlechlarico and Nanda Bruno, Harry Feist. GiaNanna Gallett. Francesco Grandiacouet, Passarelli, Marla Mich. Carla Revere, G. Sindici. Van Hulsen and A Tolnay.

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quite naive were not the subject matter so shocking. Its honest intent to tell exactly what happened in Italy while the Nazi was the unwelcomed, unwanted guest as well as to describe the work of a little band of underground workers and what happened to it when a Fascist collaborator turned it in-all tend to make "Open City" one of the most remarkable pictures to come. lout of the war.

MEMBERS OF ITS apparently

PEN CITY," Italy's rag-hand-picked cast, although gathered ing protest against its more or less at random and paid less than a pittance, have re-enacted former friend and rethe bitterness of life in Italy before cent dictator, the Nazi, comes the echoing sounds of fleeing Nazi

boots have died on their ears. as do so many foreign films, Here is a rotund priest acting as late to the Lower Mall Theater. the hero of the tale and doing But even at this hour Rome's strange things for a priest, but this bitterness toward Germany and is all-out war and life becomes [strange and distorted. As porindirectly toward Mussolini's trayed by Aldo Fabrizi, known in Italy fills this amazing and Italy as a great comic, this priest sometimes shocking picture, an is more than a spiritual leader. He acrid, stinging record of life is humorous, human and sublimely tragic at the finish when exposed under the Nazi heel. by a collaborator and sent to his SO FLAT is the lighting, so crude death at the hands of the Nazis. some of the settings, so reminiscent; There are so many sincere, artof ancient photography, so long less, unpretentious characters in are the dialogue passages early in this story that their sufferings the tale that it achieves by its an-seem magnified. There is the girl tiquated methods at film-making who is about to have a baby, apthe very end it seeks. proaching marriage with humility That is, it convinces the specta-and even apology. She is honestly ter he is not seeing a fiction story created by Anna Magnani from but is watching a documentary film Rome's night life. There is, among dealing with the cruelly oppressed others, eight-year-old Vito Annicunder the lash of the cruel oppres-chiarico, a bootblack until he was; sor, a story made under almost im-\picked for this film, who leads the possible conditions. neighborhood "gang" on many raids and who almost steals the actYOU HAVE the feeling that the ing honors in the film. Germans were not out of Rome five] There are others, too-the vicious minutes ahead of G. 1. occupation Germans, the weakling girl who is before this handful of talented and devoted both to drugs and a Geravenging Italians began to record on man lesbian spy, and many others. film exactly the kind of life they There are the torture chamber had been leading during the climac-scenes which permit the imaginatic days of Mussolini's waning tion full play, adding to the terrors power-those days when Hitler had of Nazi cruelty. full control and his S. S. playboys At no time is "Open City" a carried on real and terrifying dic-pretty picture, but it is honest and tatorship. forthright, and it records simply, There are, indeed, moments in truthfully, bitterly how the Italian the film when you are quite sure felt and what he did when the that some of the footage was exGerman tyrant was upon him. The posed surreptitiously while a Nazi superimposed English titles are official stuck his snout in the air good.

and strode down an alley toward a Here is undying hatred as you cellar where some luckless member have never seen it before on the of the resistance movement had screen. 1 rate "Open City" as one been strapped to a table, awaiting of the screen's rare achievements. only the pleasure of the Nazi beI urge every adult to see just how fore slowly, horribly yielding up great a "quickie" can really become his spirit to the Infinite. when its theme reaches into men's The film's simplicity would seem hearts and souls.

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