Writer/director Giuseppe De Santis, best known for BITTER RICE/’49 (the sexy Neo-Realist film) rounds up the usual creative suspects from the movement (co-writer Cesare Zavattini, D.P. Otello Martelli many others) for this mixed message of a drama that, by the time it’s done, seems to smell Il Boom, the mid-‘50s/’60s Italian economic miracle, in the air. But just now, even a modest ad in the newspaper for a low-wage secretarial position gets hundreds of in-person applicants. Fleshed out with formulaic story beats & character development, it uses a real-life tragic incident as narrative pivot after a first act that leans on Neo-Realism as an army of unemployed women show up, starting at dawn, for the company gate to unlock so they can grab an early interview. Two hundred before the boss shows. Plenty of time to fill us in on employment & family histories; sob stories and sacrifice.* But can they type? Act Two moves past Neo-Realism to disaster movie tropes as the building’s old staircase unable to support all those eager women determined to beat a line jumper to the office. Crash! With buried bodies; crushed bones; missing people and property; instant top-of-the-news notoriety. Act Three swings portmanteau as we follow a handful of survivors who pick themselves up and find the jolt has altered their view of life’s goals . . . and not for the worse. Proposals, packed bags and a prostitute’s pledge; goodbye city-life/hello country town for others. A welcome shock to the system for many. Lightly sketched, with all the depth of a chalk boundary line on a grass field, but neatly served.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Plus, nearly half the women groomed to look like the next Ingrid Bergman (it’s during her Roberto Rossellini period), but none as compelling on screen as the young Raf Vallone, a struggling artist who gets the girl after she's all shook up on that staircase. Those Rossellini/Bergman films poorly received at the time. De Sica fared better with his off-beat Neo-Realist fantasy MIRACLE IN MILAN/’51, out between BICYCLE THIEVES/’48 and UMBERTO D/’52. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/10/miracolo-milano-miracle-in-milan-1951.htm
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