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.