Toth Database - Cinema

Lost Youth 

Country of production : Italy

Year : 1947

Duration : 86 min

Color : Black and white 

Genre: Police, noir

Director: Pietro Germi

Subject: Pietro Germi 

Screenplays: Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli, Antonio Pietrangeli, Enzo Provenzale

Producer: Carlo Ponti for Lux Film

Distribution : Lux Film

Photograph: Carlo Montuori

Editing : Renaldo May

Music: Carlo Rustichelli

Set design: Gianni Mazzocca

Performers and characters

Massimo Girotti : Marcello Mariani

Jacques Sernas : Stephen

Carla Del Poggio : Luisa

Franca Maresa : Maria Rivano

Diana Borghese : Stella

Nando Bruno : The Commissioner

Leo Garvaglia: Manfredi

Emma Baron : Stefano's mother

Dino Maronetto : Berto

Giorgio Metrailler: Gianni

Angelo Dessy : The Biscazziere

Franco Pesce : The Police Photographer 

Michele Riccardini: Sor Giuseppe

Michele Sakara : Matricol 

Lando Sguazzini: Francesco, the usher

Enrico Urbini : Marshal

Leda Vallini : A Student

Voice actor 

Giuseppe Rinaldi : Stefano

Rina Morelli : Maria Rivano

Tina Lattanzi : Stella 

Plot 

Infiltrated the Roman university environment, to which lead some clues collected at the scene of the murder of an involuntary spectator of a bar robbery, police inspector Marcello Mariani, knows Luisa, daughter of a teacher who introduces him to the family. The unconventional behaviour, together with the wide availability of money by Stefano, Luisa's brother, also a student, attracts his attention. After another unsuccessful robbery at the University Fund (temporarily empty), during which a caretaker was wounded, the latter before dying, claims to have managed to injure a gang member. Luisa herself, unaware of her partner's duties, tells Marcello about the injury to an arm suffered by Stefano the previous night. The policeman's suspicions are reinforced, and in the new situation that has arisen, and forced to cut with the woman. Maria university employee and friend of Stefano, since she was a child, found at the scene of the robbery a lighter with the initials of the young man, for which she still has a strong devotion. Without harbouring any suspicions towards him, however, she is determined, despite the insistence of the other, to hand him over to the police. Under pressure from the gang, after luring her to an isolated place, Stephen kills her in cold blood. Warning that he is now stalked by the police, he decides to go underground for good and get the necessary money by robbing a bisca attached to the usually frequented night. But Mariani, thanks to Luisa's confidence, is aware of Stefano's place and relationship with a local singer. Police wait for the gang members at the exit and, after a shootout, the young outlaw falls in front of his sister's eyes. It is up to her to communicate the news to the unsuspecting parents and, before entering, leave Marcello with a goodbye.

The Critics 

"Germi's truths have stopped almost all at the surface, worse at the outer frame... but they rarely touched the soul of his characters. What do they have inside, these characters who are bad without knowing the reasons?... Why, at twenty, without a real need for money, do they organize themselves into armed gangs? Who or what reduced them like that? ... This seems to be the lead to the ugly copy of our new realism, the imitation of a poorly felt formula. 

Il tempo,7 March 1948 – Gian Luigi Rondi