Toth Banca Dati - Cinema
First Communion
Plot
It is Easter, the daughter of Mr. Carloni who owns a pastry shop in Rome, must make the first communion. But when Carloni wakes up the dress has not yet arrived and then Carloni decides to go himself to look for the seamstress at home to pick up the dress, with the brand new car that he can barely drive. In fact, during the journey he takes a fine, arrives at the seamstress's house and picks up the dress, but at this point the car breaks down, the return home becomes a feat: blown taxis, overflowing city buses, sings with everyone. After a violent quarrel with one of his contenders had previously apostropheed him stops at the newsstand and leaves the dress to a lame man in order to have his hands free, begins the fight, at the end of which, he returns to newsstands and the lame is gone (in fact he was looking for him to give him back the dress), the manager of the newsstand does not remember anything. He tries to track down the lame duck, believing he stole the dress, but to no availingly. He returns home where a disgruntled customer awaits him with the surprise found in an egg bought in the pastry shop, his desperate daughter and his wife very nervous. She tries to be given unsuccessfully by a neighbor the dress of her daughter, also communicating, a neighbor offers him a fabric dress of the type that of first communion, to be adapted. However, it takes time, and Carloni just has to try to convince the parish priest to delay the ceremony a little, without too much success, especially since the prelate had learned from Carloni's wife, that he is not a believer and that he never goes to church. When everything seems lost now comes the lame, who read the address on a nameplate of the dress, which by the way Carloni did not want the seamstress to sew it, to save time, and everything ends well.
Original language: Italian
Country of Production: Italy, France
Year: 1950
Duration: 90 min
Technical data: B / N
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Directed by: Alessandro Blassetti
Subject: Cesare Zavattini
Screenplay: Alessandro Blasetti, Cesare Zavattini
Producer: Salvo D'Angelo
Production house: Minerva Film
Director of photography: Mario Craveri
Editing: Mario Serandei
Music: Alessandro Cicognini
Scenography: Veniero Colasanti
Interpreters and characters
Aldo Fabrizi: Commendator Carlo Carloni
Gaby Morlay: Maria Carloni
Ludmilla Dudarova: Miss Ludovisi
Enrico Viarisio: Trolleybus man
Ernesto Almirante: Antonio the colonel
Aldo Silvani: tenant with noisy shoes
Lauro Gazzolo: Customer who buys the Easter egg
Jean Tissier: Doctor in the taxi
Amedeo Trilli: Traffic warden
Dante Maggio: traffic policeman
Carlo Romano: Taxi driver
Marga Cella: invited with the turban
Amalia Pellegrini: grandmother
Luigi Moneta: Cardinal
Silvio Bagolini: Sacristan
Luciano Mondolfo: Sacristan
Voice actors
Lydia Simoneschi: Maria Carloni
Tina Lattanzi: Miss Ludovisi
Amilcare Pettinelli: Archbishop
Giorgio Capecchi: doctor in the taxi
Alberto Sordi: Narrator
Criticism
" An exemplary story in the manner of Zavattini, author of the subject, with facts of daily life that take on the character of symbols of our society, characters that summarize in a few traits some aspects of our living in common, provides the raw material for a film that Blasetti has conducted with grace and lightness, good-natured style and irony, remembering Four Steps in the Clouds. "
Gianni Rodolino on the Bolaffi Catalogue volume 1, 1945 /1955
Notes
The narrator is alberto sordi, the cast is credited with actor Louis De Funes who does not actually participate in the film. The actor in question mistaken for him was the director and actor Luciano Mondolfo, a true lookalike of the actor French who was often mistaken for him.