Il Generale Della Rovere (1959)

Bardone, a petty con man, is arrested by the Gestapo and coerced into impersonating a partisan leader in order to expose another resistance organizer.

Director:

Roberto Rossellini

Writers:

Sergio Amidei (screenplay), Diego Fabbri (screenplay)

Stars:

Vittorio De Sica, Hannes Messemer, Sandra Milo

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 12 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Vittorio De Sica	...	Bardone AKA 'Grimaldi'
Hannes Messemer	...	S.S. Colonel Mueller
Vittorio Caprioli	...	Aristide Banchelli
Nando Angelini	...	Paolo
Herbert Fischer	...	Sergeant Walter Hageman
Mary Greco	...	Vera (the madam)
Bernardo Menicacci	...	Prison guard (as Bernardino Menicacci)
Lucia Modugno	...	Partisan girl
Luciano Pigozzi	...	Prisoner
Kurt Polter	...	German officer
Giuseppe Rosetti	...	Pietro Valeri
Kurt Selge	...	Marshall Schrantz
Linda Veras	...	German attendant
Sandra Milo	...	Olga
Giovanna Ralli	...	Valeria

Storyline

Genoa, 1943. Grimaldi is a swindler, pretending to be a colonel in the Italian army to get money from the family of people put into jail by the Nazis. Once caught, the Gestapo makes a deal with him : he will stay alive if he impersonates the General Della Rovere, a leader of the Resistance who has just been shot by the Nazis, to be put into a political jail where he is supposed to identify another Resistance leader.

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Plot Keywords:

resistance | nazi | gestapo | swindler | con man | 

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Taglines:

Hero...or Fake?

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian German French Hebrew English

Release Date:

11 November 1959 (France)

Also Known As:

General Della Rovere

Filming Locations:

495 Via Flaminia, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Zebra Films, Société Nouvelle des Établissements Gaumont (SNEG)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

132 min 138 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Mono (Fonolux)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

French visa # 22970.

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Goofs

Throughout the film, S.S. Colonel Mueller is addressed as ' Herr Obersturmbannführer' (Lieutenant Colonel) but his rank, as indicated by the collar patches on his uniform, is that of a 'Standartenführer' (Colonel).

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Quotes

S.S. Colonel Mueller: [Talking about Della Rovere] Listen, these notes mention that he speaks fluent English, French, and German.
Victorio Emanuele Bardone: I know a few words in French.
[Speaking in French]
Victorio Emanuele Bardone: Place your bets gentlemen. All bets have been placed.
S.S. Colonel Mueller: All bets have been placed, eh?
Victorio Emanuele Bardone: Do you know what is the cause of all my troubles? Gambling! I always lose! What's more, I always pay, and I've never cheated.
S.S. Colonel Mueller: I hope I won't be the first to find otherwise. This is no game we're playing, Colonel!

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Connections

Referenced in Rossellini visto da Rossellini (1993)

User Reviews

Uneven

Vittorio de Sica stars as a petty gambler and con artist near the end of the Second World War. His gambling losses are so bad that he has to swindle friends for money; oftentimes he does so with the promise of freeing imprisoned loved ones (and sometimes he even succeeds at doing so). One swindle goes wrong, and the victim informs the Nazis of what De Sica is doing. Instead of simply imprisoning him, they make a deal: if in prison he poses as General della Rovere, who was killed in an escape attempt, and root out a certain partisan leader, they will pay him off and ship him to Switzerland. De Sica is no great man, but he is also no spy. But, initially, he does what the Nazis tell him to do. This film should probably be much better than it is, but it just lacks the passion of Rossellini's earlier films. Sure, they were overly melodramatic, but I don't think the way to fix them is flatten out all the emotions of the film. Rossellini did make a nearly perfect film after his strictly neorealistic period in Stromboli, and General della Rovere, a decade later, is a huge step in the wrong direction. There are a few excellent scenes, but nowhere near enough. It helps that it ends so well. It certainly hinders the project that the whole swindling part of the film lasts for almost half the film, at around an hour. De Sica's character isn't very consistent between the two halves, either. Blame that on the script, though, because De Sica is generally great throughout the entire film. Sandra Milo, who would later co-star in Fellini's 8½ and Juliette of the Spirits, has a small role. 6/10.