Toth Database - Cinema
Under the Sun of Rome
Year: 1948
Duration: 104 min
Color: BN
Genre: Dramatic
Director: Renato Castellani
Producer: Sandro Ghenzi, Antonio Roi
Photograph: Domenico Scale , Armando Nannuzzi
Editing by Giuliano Betti
Music: Nino Rota, conducted by Franco Ferrara
Set design: Dario Cecchi
Performers and characters
Oscar Blando as Ciro Bissolati
Liliana Mancini as Iris
Francesco Golisano as Geppa
Ennio Fabeni as Bruno
Alfredo Locatelli as Nero
Gaetano Chiurazzi as Bellicapelli
Anselmo Di Biagio as Doctor
Ferruccio Tozzi as Ciro's father
Maria Tozzi as Ciro's mother
Giuseppe Fava: door
Raffaele Caporilli as Mbriach ella
Illario Malaschini as Pirate
Homer Paoloni: Coccolone
Gisella Monaldi as Tosca
Alberto Sordi as Fernando
Luigi Valenti as Romoletto
Glauco Panaccio as Panaccioni
Angelo Giacometti as waiter
Lorenzo di Marco as farmer
Weft
Ciro, seventeen years old, son of a night watchman and a housewife, spends his days bickering with friends in the Roman quarter of San Giovanni, where he lives. Their summer meeting place is a marrana, characteristic urban country stream. At the colossus lives the Geppa, so named for his funny hair that recalls that of Mastro Geppetto, a poor boy who earns a living collecting and reselling cigarette cicche. Iris, ciro's age and dirimpettaia, has always been in love with him but punctually rejected until the arrival of the Nazis, since due to roundups Ciro is forced to hide in Iris' house until Geppa and Bruno propose to him to enter the "Black Purse" affair (as the song sung by the purses says). Ciro, Bruno, and Geppa Vagano on the run for Lower Lazio, posing as English deserters , (Geppa for an Indian), to get food from the locals, who are wary of giving food to the fleeing Romans, until they are unmasked by the turpe Fernando, black purse, former salesman of the shoemaker, who had known the boys because of the theft, carried out by the gang of young people in his shop , of two sinister 70 lire white canvas shoes. Thus, on the run for the countryside, Ciro and Geppa are arrested (Bruno manages to escape it) while they are looking for supplies to be resold to the black bag. Locked up in a latrine, the prison is bombarded and a providential breach is created and the two manage to escape. Back in Rome, occupied by Reich troops, Ciro learns of his mother's death. It is June 1944, the arrival of American troops in Rome. Fernando opens a dance venue, the Liberty Club, frequented by the same boys. Ciro is approached by Tosca, the owner's wife. After months, tired of the relationship, he tries to richly tarla but Iris with a small ruse intervenes forcing her to publicly assert her frivolity. Ciro is approached by professional thieves to arrange a tyre theft by pressing a factory near the Roma Tuscolana train station. Geppa tries in vain to dissuade him and appeals to Iris, who declares herself uninterested in the boy's fate. All he has to do is look for and alert Ciro's father to patrol in the area. However, moved by the deep feeling he has towards the boy, he finds him first and convinces him to desist but in the meantime the other two come. The man attempts to arrest the criminals but follows a shootout in which he is killed. Ciro only then understands that the period of youthful light-heartedness is over and must assume his responsibilities.
Notes
Produced by Sandro Ghenzi for Universal Cine S.A., the film was shot all outdoors while for the interiors are used real settings, almost all around the Roman quarter of the Basilica of St. John, Piazzale Appio, Via Magna Grecia, Via Corfinio, Via Sannio, Via Appia Nuova, Via Emanuele Filiberto, Via dello Stradone di San Giovanni, Via Taranto and Via Assisi or near the Roma Tuscolana Station and the historic Pirelli factory.
The film was released on October 2, 1948.