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 & 7 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:

The fantastic wartime adventures and intrigues of the mountebank who held the fate of the fighting underground in his hands!

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

As Genoa had been rebuilt since the War ended, sets had to be built at Cinecittà and archival footage was used for rear projection.

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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

Victorio Emanuele Bardone: My friends, I am General Della Rovere. Calm, dignity, control. Be men! Show those scoundrels that you're not afraid of dying! They're the ones that must tremble! Each one of those bombs announces his ending and our freedom!
[Taking cover in his cell]
Victorio Emanuele Bardone: Our father, who is in Heaven...

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Connections

Version of Il generale Della Rovere (2011)

User Reviews

Life during wartime

I have little to add to what the first two commentators have written.

Rossellini has a penchant for melodrama and rhetoric, but, fortunately, he keeps this tendency for the most part in check in this case. This film is dry and sober, and yet touching in the way it describes the transformation of a petty swindler, who manages to survive by cheating those who are unlucky enough to have their loved ones arrested by the Nazis and try everything they can in order to save them from execution or deportation to Germany, into a man who realises that, when faced with the choice between right and wrong, he ultimately has to take sides. And, when the time comes, he will do what his conscience will tell him to do, even though this will mean his own death.

Vittorio De Sica is great, as usual, in this dramatic role as well as in his comic ones. Non-Italians may find interesting the fact that Vittorio De Sica was himself an unrepentant gambler in real life as well, to the point that, if I'm not mistaken, his dead left his family saddled with debts. The film also gives a good idea of what life was like for ordinary Italians under the German occupation between 1943 and 1945. Many had to make difficult choices in a confused situation, and they reacted differently. Some took sides and risks, on both sides; others tried to survive. Some came to accept humiliating compromises in order to save their loved ones from death (consider the character of Borghesio, the old, retired lawyer who mortgages his house in order to gather the money that is needed in order to buy the German officer responsible for choosing the prisoners who are bound to be sent to Germany as forced labourers, which often meant death, or of Ms Fassio, the wife who ends up humiliating herself in a desperate and vain attempt to rescue his husband and is torn between her inner contempt for the Nazis and the urge to do everything possible to save his husband). Some others tried to profit from the situation. Some others made different choices in different moments, sometimes cynical parasites, sometimes heroes. However, everyone faced dilemmas, often about their very survival.

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