Era notte a Roma (1960)

Director:

Roberto Rossellini

Writers:

Sergio Amidei (writer)
Diego Fabbri (writer)

Release Date:

31 July 1960 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot Keywords:

English | Black Market | Former Priest | Italy | Rome Italy

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Giovanna Ralli	...	Esperia Beli
Renato Salvatori	...	Renato Balducci
Leo Genn	...	Michael Pemberton
Sergei Bondarchuk	...	Fyodor Nazukov
Peter Baldwin	...	Peter Bradley
Paolo Stoppa	...	Principe Alessandro Antoniani
Enrico Maria Salerno	...	Dot. Costanzi
Hannes Messemer	...	Colonel Von Kleist
Sergio Fantoni
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Laura Betti
Rosalba Neri	...	Erika Almagia

Also Known As:

Blackout in Rome (International: English title)
Escape by Night (USA)
It Was Night in Rome (International: English title) (informal literal title)
Les évadés de la nuit (France)
Wait for the Dawn (UK)

Runtime:

USA:82 min | Italy:138 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian | German | Russian | English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

International Goldstar

Trivia:

Italian censorship visa # 32106 delivered on 17-6-1960.

Just before Anzio

An user complained that Rossellini's movies are overlooked today;he is completely right.Although the Italian New Wave was never so hard and so nasty as their French counterpart on former colleagues,it nevertheless cast a shadow over them.On the European board ,there are plenty of messages about Fellini,Antonioni,Pasolini (and Godard,Truffaut ,Rohmer and co)whereas Rossellini (and De Sica,the great Luigi Comencini)are almost always absent.

He also complained about the cuts in Rossellini's works;however,what was intolerable in "Vanina Vanini" (the first part of which is thoroughly incomprehensible) is not so important in "Era Notte a Roma" . My copy has a running time of about 130 min and that's enough,for I think that it's overlong and even full of filler.

"Era Notte" tells the story of three escaped prisoners during WW2: a Russian,an English and an American.It's also the story of an Italian girl who helps the peasants to get rid of their burdensome guests in exchange for food.She's not a resistance fighter (as his fiancé is) but she will prove herself very human in spite of her weakness.

Rossellini displays respect for the audience: every character speaks his own language ,which gives the movie much more substance than ,for instance ," Uomo della croce " in which everyone spoke Italian.My favorite scene is the Christmas celebration with a very moving "Auld Lang Syne" sung by people from four different countries.It cannot be considered one of Rossellini 's masterworks but its several moments of brilliance make it a must for Rossellini's fans.