Toth Database - Cinema




Rome 11 a.m. 

 

 

 

Year: 1952

Duration: 105 min 

Color: B/N 

Genre: Dramatic

Director: Giuseppe De Santis

Producer:Transcontinental Italia – Paul Graetz 

Photograph: Otello Martelli

Editing by Gabriele Varriale

Music: Mario Nascimbene

Set design: Leon Barsacq 

 

 

Performers and characters

 

 

Luica Bosè as Simona

 

Carla del Poggio as Luciana Renzoni

 

Maria Grazia France as Cornelia Riva

 

Lea Padovani as Catherine

 

Delia Scala as Angelina

 

Elena Varzi as Adriana

 

Raf Walloon as Charles

 

Massimo Girotti as Nando

 

Paolo Stoppa: Employee

 

Armando Francioli as Romoletto

 

Paola Borboni as Matilde

 

Irene Galter as Clara

 

Eva Vanicek as Gianna

 

Checco Durante as Adriana's father

 

Alberto Farnese as Augustus

 

Fausto Guerzoni: the owner of the palace

 

Pietro Tordi: the architect of the palace

 

Mino Argentieri: hospital nurse

 

Anna Maria Zijno: royal survivor of Via Savoia

 

Maria Amassari: royal survivor of Via Savoia

 

 

Notes:

 

 

Following a job advertisement in a newspaper, two hundred girls show up at an address in Via Savoia to obtain a typing job at an accountant's office. In an Italy exacerbated by unemployment in general, but even more so by the impossibility for women to find work, the most diverse young people come forward for the interview; fallen nobles, prostitutes trying to change their lives, women with their unemployed husbands, daughters of wealthy people whose pensions are not enough to survive. Crouching on the flights of the stairs of the small palace, they exchange impressions and hint at their lives made of misery and expedient to live. A furious quarrel over the priority in line unleashes the girls, whose arrogance to move forward turns the wait into tragedy: the railing of the ladder gives way, destroying the steps one by one causing the women to fall, some of whom are seriously injured one of them, Anna Maria Barldi, dies as a result of the injuries sustained. Taken to the hospital, the bitter discovery: to be treated, the hospital demands payment of the daily fee of 2,300 lire. Many of them are forced to take care at home because they are unable to pay for hospital treatment.

 

notes

 

The film is set in Rome, in Largo Circense 37, while in reality the collapse took place in Via Savoia, 31 in the Salario district, on January 14, 1951.

 

The small square where the palace collapsed was entirely rebuilt in the studio by the famous French Leon Barsacq.

 

The film is inspired by a tragedy that really happened, the film was attended by three girls involved in the tragedies, the same director Augusto Genina, made the film Three Forbidden Stories based on the same incident.