This is one very powerful movie, wonderfully filmed. I truly had to remind myself that these were all actors, because it would have been very easy to believe that what I was watching was going on someplace in the world - except that it is in black and white.
My one real problem with this movie, however, is that it went on too long once the Neapolitans started fighting back against the Germans, who occupied the city after the fall of Mussolini in a futile attempt to slow the Allies' march up the Italian peninsula. It becomes basically one street battle after another of Neapolitans with guns against German tanks. While each one is well done, it became too much of the same thing for me.
My other, lesser problems were that:
the depiction of women in this movie is almost uniformly negative. With a few notable exceptions, every time we see a woman or group of women - and that is often - the women are completely overwhelmed by their emotions and getting in the way of the men who are doing the fighting. They never help, but they often hinder. In 1962 that probably didn't bother many viewers, but it does get old today.
In the last third or so of the movie, when we have all the street battles, the caption writer seems to give up on trying to let us know what is being said. There are long stretches with no captions. Since the dialogue is almost all in Neapolitan rather than standard Italian, even some Italians, not to mention non-Italian speakers, are left wondering what all the shouting and wailing is about.
I would certainly recommend this movie to anyone interested in World War II Italian history. I don't know, honestly, if it would hold other viewers for its full two hours.
My one real problem with this movie, however, is that it went on too long once the Neapolitans started fighting back against the Germans, who occupied the city after the fall of Mussolini in a futile attempt to slow the Allies' march up the Italian peninsula. It becomes basically one street battle after another of Neapolitans with guns against German tanks. While each one is well done, it became too much of the same thing for me.
My other, lesser problems were that:
the depiction of women in this movie is almost uniformly negative. With a few notable exceptions, every time we see a woman or group of women - and that is often - the women are completely overwhelmed by their emotions and getting in the way of the men who are doing the fighting. They never help, but they often hinder. In 1962 that probably didn't bother many viewers, but it does get old today.
In the last third or so of the movie, when we have all the street battles, the caption writer seems to give up on trying to let us know what is being said. There are long stretches with no captions. Since the dialogue is almost all in Neapolitan rather than standard Italian, even some Italians, not to mention non-Italian speakers, are left wondering what all the shouting and wailing is about.
I would certainly recommend this movie to anyone interested in World War II Italian history. I don't know, honestly, if it would hold other viewers for its full two hours.