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.