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.