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.