Il signor Max

Italian audiences of the 30s enjoyed seeing well dressed society types in their night clubs dancing and playing cards, going on cruises or riding horses just like American audiences did. (One difference being that Hollywood in its studios' productions also allowed a significant number of gritty social realist works about the less well off which balanced those escapist fantasies of the rich.) The charm of this particular Camerini comedy is that we get to check out the lifestyle of the snob set but from the point of view of the appealing young De Sica who plays a kiosk news and magazine vendor allowed through special circumstances to pretend he is Signor Max. The dual identity causes confusion for a pretty young blonde chambermaid to one of these snobs.(At one point to distinguish the two the vendor affects an urban Rome accent.) The film has been loosely remade, twice, but simply as a comedy about a working class guy trying to fit into the elite, without the double identity plot. In the 1957 version Sordi played the role with an aging De Sica now his classy mentor.The 1991 version was directed and co written by De Sica 's son Christian.

This two-year old Astra Films Production (the correct name of the production company) made it to the US, distributed by Esperia Films, in October, 1939. First US showing was at NYC's Cinecitta Theater (one of the few times any movie house in America used "theater", as opposed to "theatre" in its name), with Italian dialogue and no English titles.

Vittorio De Sica, heir to a large sum of money and owner of a newspaper vending stall, makes enough money out of his business to take a vacation at a fashionable resort. He is given a cruise ticket by an aristocrat who is an old school friend, and is mistaken for the aristocrat when he uses a camera that has his friends name on it.

Assia Noris plays a maid who falls in love with him because of who he is and not who others think he is. Happy ending comes when De Sica marries Noris, who is more real than the pampered society belles he has been partying with.

Italian comedy film from the thirties which at first glance seems very cute and also funny with a moral that is also nice, then if you look at the moral it is actually a bit contradictory because on the one hand it seems to tell you that if you are from a certain social class it is better if you are left with that you can't pretend to be rich if you're not rich and on the other hand it tells you that if you're unhappy with your situation you have to rebel and not continue to be mistreated. Very light and funny film but with a very melancholic halo and as I said before with this cape made by dubious morals. Done very well as the social classes are characterized, the rich are snobbish and unpleasant, while the others are all more sympathetic and easy-going, a distinction that makes us understand very well throughout the film how the atmosphere is treated.

I love Vittorio De Sica, and he's great as always, but this film owes it's best moments to Assia Norris. I've never seen her act better or look prettier. The most thrilling scene was one without dialogue where De Sica was singing on a stage and Norris watches with such emotion. It's the type of scene that should be studied by film students.

The movie was very frustrating in parts, but the good parts more than made up for it. I find it annoying when otherwise intelligent characters don't think their actions through.

I would have turned the movie off near the beginning, but I had heard such good reviews of it that I kept watching, and I'm very happy that I did.

The plot of this movie is such a trope of someone pretending to be two different people, that I was expecting the same old thing I've seen many times before, but this film was executed so well that it seems different, though I can't say where.