Le Bandit

After WW11 director Alberto Lattuada adhered to the then-current Neo-realist style and this just about squeezes into that category as the 'returning soldier' theme is essentially a peg on which to hang a gangster, noir melodrama very much in the manner of Hollywood. The influence of post-war American culture is also evident in the use of Chick Webb's 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket' and a truly bizarre rendition by a mobster of Brown and Homer's 'Sentimental Journey'.

The film's main attraction is of course the pairing of Amedeo Nazzari, a strong leading man and Anna Magnani who utilises her earthy, sexual charisma. Nazzari received a well-deserved Nastro d'Argento for his performance. Also of note in a small but telling role is Carla del Poggio who married Lattuada the year this was released and who was to be seen to great effect in his 'Without pity' and 'Mill on the Po'. The sina qua non of films of this period, the sympathetic child, is beautifully played by Eliana Banducci whose only film this seems to be, alas.

This is Lattuada's third but his first feature of note and its unevenness which stems from it's screenplay by committee, in this case numbering six, is compensated for by its performances, taut editing, momentum, Aldo Tonti's atmospheric cinematography and effective close-ups with Lattuada's father Felice again providing the score. In keeping with its Hollywood counterparts the baddie has to get his just desserts but his demise amidst the rugged scenery is imaginatively realised.

This movie has a great beginning and a moving ending,but the gangsters story in the middle is not on the same level.

Ernesto ,a prisoner of war,comes back to his dear Italy ,to find his mother killed in a bombing and his sister a prostitute. The prisoners packed up on a train, the crowds on the platform with the distraught German woman claiming " he married me ", the drive through a ruined country ,the exhausted prisoners coming against an inhuman local government ......All rings true ..

What follows is a bit disappointing ; as the precedent user wrote, the social context is almost completely forgotten ;Lattuada may have had "I'm a fugitive from a chain gang " in mind ,this film noir classic ,but his story is a trite unconvincing story of cops and gangsters and La Magnani is totally wasted as a moll .....

The epilogue,which I will not reveal, is a beautiful touch of melodrama, a genre Amadeo Nazzari knew quite well.

This particular movie, one of the first works of Alberto Lattuada, represents an interesting attempt to build a great noir-story (the story of the love of Ernesto for his sister -that come back from war he found to work in a brothel- and for the beauty of Anna Magnani, the girl of a gangster) in the contest of the italian society (Torino) immediatly after the war. Similarly to the most popular work of Giuseppe De Santis (Riso Amaro), the director tried to use the classical model of american noir story on the social contest of Neorealism: but where De Santis could unify with a great style (and much more money...) the two elemens, Lattuada showed some difficulties to combinate them. In the film there is a point-break that gives up the story: in the first part we have the dramatic return of Ernesto in his Torino after the war (from a german lager, maybe), looking for his sister and his mother, in a city wasted by the allied bombs; the second part is only a nice gangster-story, where the social contest has been maybe forgotten by Lattuada. Even if, with honesty, we have to remember the difficulties that had Lattuada and his crew during the shoot of the movie, we must underline the presence of the two popular actors, Amedeo Nazzari and Anna Magnani, that maybe prevails on the poor conditions of the life in that year (1946). For a similar work see also "Caccia tragica" by G.De Santis Emanuele Scansani