Toth Database - Cinema 

The Boom

Plot

Giovanni Alberti (Alberto Sordi), a small entrepreneur who in the years of the economic boom, is heavily indebted because of the on and scarce capacity in business but above all of his very high standard of living, which strives to maintain at all costs even For the pressures of beautiful and frivolous wife Silvia (Gianna Maria Canale), of which she is in love. After John, unable to return a large loan, asked for financial help to relatives and alleged friends by getting contempteous rubbish (the only one willing to help him concretely would be his mother, but not rich enough to do so) , unexpectedly the wife of a very rich builder, Mrs. Bausetti, gives him a private appointment and an interesting affair. John even suspects that the elderly lady intends to make her mistress; in fact, the Bausetti, accustomed to obtaining everything he wants with his money and with his cold, dismissative and only seemingly conciliatory ways, wants that John Sell for a large figure a cornea to her husband, who long before had been blinded in one eye by an accident with quicklime. They could afford afford says quietly the woman, n on-worth to implant the cornea of a dead stranger, but it is preferable to proposesuch an arrangement, however obviously illegal, to a young, healthy and in need of money.Meanwhile, spreads the news that John is ruined; Silvia, feeling betrayed and that he was forced to give up the comfort, does not even consider the idea of making sacrifices to help her husband, but returns to her father's House with the two-year-old son. John, desperate for the abandonment of his wife, ends up accepting the proposal of Bausetti in secret and agree in advance, fixing the operation next week. With the money, which claims to have earned a lucky deal, man arranges a lavish reception in his splendid apartment of EUR, in retaliation of acquaintances who had humiliated and to regain the esteem of Silvia; removed the specter of poverty, I did not hesitate to declare himself proud of him. Everything seems to go smoothly, but excision of the eye is upon us. John, faking with his wife set off on a business trip, occurs in the private clinic of Bausetti as agreed, but at the time of the operation runs away in despair.The intervention of Bausetti, as usual polished and controlled, manages to convince him not to betray the agreement: even if John gave up the money offered by the couple and gave them an advance, as would later to remedy its economic difficulties, and then to maintain the family affections? John, resigned, it will restart to the clinic. The movie closes with a carousel of advertising signs, vehicle-mounted light sequence similar to that which had accompanied the opening credits: in Italy of the boomers consuming is not a right but an obligation, although to do so give up one eye.

Notes

Giovanni and Silvia live in a luxurious apartment on a high floor of the EUR, one of the most elegant quarters of Rome; From the terrace appears in the foreground the Palazzo ENI, and you have a panorama of the entire neighbourhood (the house could be located between Viale Dell'Arte and Via del Poggio Laurentino).

Silvia's father lives in Piazza Mincio, in the Coppedè neighbourhood, another typically high-class residential area.

In a scene of the first part of the film the characters are in Villa Borghese to attend the International Horse Competition "Piazza di Siena.