User reviews

This quirky story of a simple soul from an Alaskan mining town adrift in Chicago starts in a charming humorous way as Rocco finds himself cut off from his travelling companions and undertaking a series of increasingly bizarre and complex events which threaten and finally destroy his childlike friendliness and eternal optimism. He meets a variety of strange people, some sympathetic but mostly unfriendly, and the City itself, depicted as grinding down the lives of its inhabitants, is characterized by the harsh attitude of the policeman who patrols the rundown area that Rocco finds himself in. Marcello Mastroianni, always a reliable performer, interprets one of his best roles as Rocco, and there is a fascinating array of mainly unknowns depicting the varied group of defeated citydwellers he has of necessity thrown his lot in with. The ending is bleak and uncompromising. The transformation of Rocco Papalao is complete.

The movie has a nice screenplay and a wonderful Mastroianni, but the directing is awful. The movie scenes are rhetoric and the photography too bad for 1971. It seems nobody took care about colors during the scenes. However the story will remain in your mind for a long time. The reflections of the old man are still impressive and you can understand the uncertainity of years '60 mentality. On the other side the crash of two worlds (the top model and the miner) is almost without winners, discovering the banality of everyones' life. The movie seems stupid at the beginning, but slowly you understand there is much more. The major insight arrives at the last scene, while the two players perform really good. It seems that the director also helped on the screenplay. Probably is good in creating the story but not on filming it. Mastroianni in this movie made me think about Alberto Sordi on "Bello onesto, emigrato in Australia". Actually only Sordi can replace Mastroianni in this play. Both stories are similar and the life of emigrants is described in the same way, that is half empty. The tendency of emigrants to loose their personality in a foreign environment can still be a good story today in the global era.

I was an extra in this movie and I remember very well my scene with the great Italian actor however, I was only 11 years old at the time and have only seen it once since finished.

In the scene I am a boxer along with another man playing a boxer when Rocco comes inside the gym and starts to shadowbox, he then slips and falls and me and the other guy laugh at him. I then go hit the speed bag while the two of them talk. I had a great close-up and then the scene ended.

I would like to buy this movie on DVD or VHS, if anyone knows how I can find it please contact me at timgriffin_2000@yahoo.com.