L'or de Naples

"L'oro di Napoli" is the kind of movie which has everything in it. Human emotions, good and evil in Humankind, great sceneries of Napoli and its Golf, great music, great actors and most of all a genius director, Vittorio De Sica.

This is the kind of movie one may watch again and again without getting bored.

As for myself, I even took a trip to Napoli on August 2001, to find out the beautiful sites where the movie took place.

I found the beautiful "Castello Dell'Ovo" and the "Fontana Dell'Immacolatella", which are not mentioned by name in the movie. Amazingly both sites look the same as in 1954, as well as some neighboring buildings.

I managed finding a collection of the most beautiful Neapolitan Canzoni (Songs), including the song `A Marechiaro' which plays at the end of the movie, a song I cherished for long, before watching the movie.

To summarize, as far as I am concerned, `L'Oro Di Napoli' (The Gold of Napoli), constitutes a genuine treasure in the history of movies, which I'll always cherish deep in my heart.

Zeev Kasher

I am Italian and I saw this movie on TV a few days ago. I had not seen it in the past. Totò is absolutely fantastic in his role. But the most astonishing episode is that of the 'funeralino', the funeral of a child: that is very 'neapolitan' to me. Sorrow and attention to manners are co-existent and you never know whether it is true sorrow or pure acting. Paolo Stoppa is also excellent in his role as a new widower. Of course, the movie is quoted because of Sofia Loren, who was helping her husband in his job of making pizzas. This is the movie where her nickname 'la pizzaiola' came from. While watching it, I did not realize that it had been made so many years ago. It well deserves to be seen.

Superb collection of vignettes in the daily life of the people of Naples, lensed by a master director. Six separate stories, all with wonderful characters, including one starring De Sica himself as a frustrated Count, ready to wager the family silver and country estates in a desperate attempt to win an ongoing card game against an unbeatable street urchin. The movie begins with the tale of a downtrodden family man who rebels against his low-level, mob-boss bully of a lodger, setting his family free -- but at what cost? Funny, but also disturbing. One of the stories a touching, virtually wordless tale of a heartbroken mother accompanying her child's coffin to the cemetery, together with a crowd of children, unaware of the real tragedy, only interested in candy. The most dramatic piece starring Silvana Mangano as a prostitute tricked into a loveless marriage by a wealthy man atoning for the suicide of his true love. The stand-out story, a delightful tale of an adulterous pizza maker, Sophia Loren, desperately in search of an emerald ring, supposedly baked into a pizza, but in reality left on her lover's nightstand. This film is worth watching for one scene alone, watching Loren stride down the street in the rain, followed by her cuckolded husband. If ever one scene in a movie made a star then this is it. Obviously not wearing a bra, Loren's breasts fill the screen and De Sica, full of mischief, follows her every move, both from front and behind in a gorgeous, gorgeous display of Loren's twenty year old sensuality. One of those knockout scenes that belongs to film history. The last vignette, an arrogant landlord, bully to all his tenants, humiliated by them when they all in unison blow a Bronx cheer as he passes by. A trifle, but brilliantly set up and performed with cheeky perfection. What this movie also offers is the sense of reality, a total lack of artifice and lack of studio sets, all in the style of the Bicycle Thief, another of De Sica's masterpieces, filmed on the streets. One's heart aches for the passing of such a talented actor and director. This is a movie that demands to be released in a full version, not the shortened American one, in a decent and respectable DVD. Can't Criterion get hold of this somehow? MovIe lovers deserve to be able to enjoy every minute of this delight. Hats off to De Sica and all involved!

Vittorio de Sica knew his home town Naples by heart, as he, like his favourite actress Sofia Loren, practically had grown up there from the gutter. In these six episodes are reflected different insights and aspects of Napolitan life, reflecting both comedy, tragedy, drama and, as always in de Sica's films, deep humanity. One of the episodes is dedicated entirely to a funeral procession of a dead child. The most dramatic episode is the fifth with Silvana Mangano getting married to an unknown man, naturally she is shy and feels rather uncertain about the venture, and gradually the whole scheme of the situation unfolds, and she naturally reacts. Her performance is the most memorable in this film. Sophia Loren is still very young here and brilliant as a pizza hostess selling in the streets with her husband and extricating herself magnificently out of a scandal. Vittorio de Sica plays the lead himself in one of the episodes, actually making a satire out of himself, as he was a great gambler himself and needed some detachment and to handle the situation, which this sequence illustrates perfectly. The brilliant comedian Totó introduces the episodes in a very domestic situation of outrageous difficulties and awkwardness, and he manages it in a very Italian way. In brief, these six chapters of daily life in Naples in 1954 will go through to eternity with the rest of de Sica's films as timeless and ageless expressions of deep sympathy and keen warm-hearted observation.

A masterwork about Naples directed by a Neapolitan that really has it all. As with all 'portmanteau' films there are segments that 'appeal' more than others although here all of them have merit. The 'wow' factor obviously belongs to 'Pizza on Credit' in which a lusty, unfaithful wife pretends to have mislaid her wedding ring in the pizza dough. No director brought out the raw, earthy sensuality of Sophia Loren as well as de Sica who apparently choreographed her every move, gesture and inflection. Bringing them together proved a masterstroke by Carlo Ponti and as we know the de Sica/Loren partnership reaped rich rewards. The segment called 'The Gambler' featuring de Sica himself as an impoverished nobleman is masterful. Just how many hopefuls he auditioned before casting Piero Bilancioni as the servant's son who keeps beating him at cards is anyone's guess but the boy is stupendous and one wonders what became of him. Personally the story that stays with me most features Silvana Mangano as Teresa, a former prostitute who is faced with a tough choice between being the mistress of a large house and denied a husband's love or going back to her old 'profession'. The scene where she wavers and goes from tearfulness to defiant resolution is La Mangano at her most magnificent and is certainly one of the finest moments in Italian cinema. Music is by Alessandro Cicognigni, a regular de Sica collaborator and Carlo Montuori, who went on to film 'Bicycle Thieves', is behind the camera. The story by Giuseppe Marotta is adapted by the ubiquitous Cesare Zavattini who also had a hand in the screenplay. De Sica himself once said that 'Neapolitans, like children, always look good on camera' but in this he was being unduly modest. A truly magical film of which one can never tire.