The Children are Watching Us (1944) I bambini ci guardano (original title)

Director:

Vittorio De Sica

Writers:

Cesare Giulio Viola (novel)
Cesare Giulio Viola (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

25 April 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The tragic story of a boy of unhappy parents and his struggle for happiness!

Plot:

The film follows a four-year old boy named Prico as he becomes the subject of emotional folly by his fluctuant parents and inattentive relatives.

Plot Keywords:

Swimming | Dancer | Neorealism | Auto Suggestion | Corset

Cast

Emilio Cigoli	...	Andrea - il padre
Luciano De Ambrosis	...	Pricò
Isa Pola	...	Nina - la madre
Adriano Rimoldi	...	Roberto - l'amante di Nina
Giovanna Cigoli	...	Agnese - la governante
Jone Frigerio	...	La nonna (as Ione Frigerio)
Maria Gardena	...	La signora Uberti
Dina Perbellini	...	Zia Berelli
Nicoletta Parodi	...	Giuliana
Tecla Scarano	...	La signora Resta
Ernesto Calindri	...	Claudio
Olinto Cristina	...	Il rettore - The Chancellor
Mario Gallina	...	Il medico
Zaira La Fratta	...	Paolina
Armando Migliari	...	Il commendatore
Guido Morisi	...	Gigi Sbarlani
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Giulio Alfieri	...	(uncredited)
Vasco Creti	...	(uncredited)
Augusto Di Giovanni	...	Il fratello di Andrea (uncredited)
Agnese Dubbini	...	La padrone della pensione (uncredited)
Riccardo Fellini	...	Riccardo (uncredited)
Cesare Gabrielli	...	Il prestidigitatore (uncredited)
Aristide Garbini	...	(uncredited)
Luigi Garrone	...	L'ubbriaco sulla spiaggia (uncredited)
Rita Livesi	...	(uncredited)
Achille Majeroni	...	Ponti (uncredited)
Lina Marengo	...	La signora sul treno (uncredited)
Claudia Marti	...	Dada (uncredited)
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Extra (uncredited)
Astorre Pederzoli	...	(uncredited)
Giovanna Ralli	...	Una bambina che giocca ai giardinetti (uncredited)
Carlo Ranieri	...	Il professore che gioca a bocce (uncredited)
Alfredo Salvatori	...	(uncredited)
Gino Viotti	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
Vittorio De Sica

Writing credits
Cesare Giulio Viola		(novel "Pricò")
Cesare Giulio Viola		(screenplay) &
Margherita Maglione		(screenplay) &
Cesare Zavattini		(screenplay) &
Adolfo Franci		(screenplay) &
Gherardo Gherardi		(screenplay) &
Vittorio De Sica		(screenplay)
Maria Doxelofer		screenplay (uncredited)
Mario Monicelli		screenplay (uncredited)

Produced by
Franco Magli	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Renzo Rossellini

Cinematography by
Giuseppe Caracciolo		(uncredited)
Romolo Garroni		(uncredited)

Film Editing by
Mario Bonotti

Production Design by
Amleto Bonetti

Art Direction by
Vittorio Valentini

Set Decoration by
Guido Fiorini		(uncredited)
Gastone Medin		(uncredited)

Production Management
Franco Magli	....	production manager
Ermete Tamberlani	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Luisa Alessandri	....	assistant director
Paolo Moffa	....	assistant director
Lidia C. Ripandelli	....	assistant director (as Ljdia C. Ripandelli)
Ugo Amadoro	....	assistant director (uncredited)
Vittorio Cottafavi	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Alfonso de Lucas	....	assistant set decorator (uncredited)

Sound Department
Tullo Parmegiani	....	sound tecnician (as Tullio Parmegiani)
Bruno Brunacci	....	sound (uncredited)

Other crew
Vincenzo Genesi	....	laboratories owner: Tecnostampa

Production Companies

• Invicta Film
• Scalera Film S.p.a.

Distributors

• Scalera Film S.p.a. (1944) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Superfilm Distributing Corporation (1947) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Union Française de Production Cinématographique (UFPC) (1949) (France) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Dolmen Home Video (2009) (Italy) (DVD)
• Homescreen (2009) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Janus Films (USA) (TV)
• Silver Screen (2007) (Brazil) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Edizioni Mondadori  book published by
• Tecnostampa  negative cutting

Also Known As:

"I bambini ci guardano" - Italy (original title)
"The Little Martyr" - USA

Runtime:

84 min | USA:79 min (cut version) | Finland:82 min (1980)

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Alassio, Savona, Liguria, Italy

Company:

Invicta Film

Trivia:

Luciano De Ambrosis was chosen to play Prico because his mother died shortly before filming - which helped him to cry on command.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Fejezetek a film történetéböl: A neorealizmus (#1.11)" (1990)

Adults Behave Badly in The Children are Watching Us

Before his historical foray into neorealism Vittorio De Sica made this melodramatic tear jerker about a child witnessing the break-up of his parent's marriage in 1942 Italy. As in Shoeshine and Bicycle Thief he employs a child as the major protagonist and shoots most of the film from the boy's point of view. Prico is the only child of a comparatively well off family who along with a housekeeper dotes on him. The father, Andre holds a good job and is without vice. His mother, Nina, is also nurturing but caught up in a passionate affair with Roberto an impetuous lover whose selfish actions are all the more grotesque from Prico's vantage point. When Nina runs off with Roberto, Andreas quietly suffers the humiliation and pain in order to protect his son at any price. Eventually Nina returns and the family begins to heal together but Roberto re-enters the picture where once again Nina's role as mother and wife are challenged.

Considering the era and place (Fascist Italy) The Children are Watching Us is an audacious film for its time. What separates it from similar formulaic tepid melodramas of the period is De Sica's decision to arrange it around the child's subjective viewpoint and to have the infidelity occur with the mother. The father straying would almost be a cliché but the mother of a young child would make it absolutely scandalous. Along the way De Sica also skewers petite bourgeois hypocrisy and the idle class with a parade of nosy neighbors and lascivious vacationers.

Like most of De Sica's finer works, Children has a highly emotional ending that packs quite a wallop. Still, I must admit to a class snobbery in my clear cut preference for the underclass neo-realist works with their distressed socio-economic situation, marginal characters and their day to day survival shot amid the ruins of post war Italy. But even with all the benefits of the privileged child, Prico's painful experience is conveyed in the same stylistic subjectivity of jump cuts and revealing tracking shots that give the neorealist works their form and much of their power. They may be a rung up on the economic ladder but it does not ameliorate their tragic circumstance.