Rome-Paris-Rome

1951 film

18 October 1951 (1951-10-18)

Running time

100 minutesCountriesFrance
ItalyLanguageItalian

Rome-Paris-Rome (Italian: Signori, in carrozza!) is a 1951 French-Italian comedy film directed by Luigi Zampa and starring Aldo Fabrizi, Sophie Desmarets and Peppino De Filippo.^[1] It was shot at the Farnesina Studios in Rome and on location in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Enrico Ciampi.

Plot

Vicenzo works as an attendant on the sleeping cars between Rome and Paris. For several years he has had two families, a wife and scrounging Neapolitan brother-in-law in Rome and an attractive widow with a young daughter in Paris whose existence he has managed to keep secret from the other. When he is offered the chance to work permanently at one location he chooses Paris, but complications ensue when his brother-in-law follows him to the French capital.

Cast

Aldo Fabrizi as Vincenzo Nardi
Sophie Desmarets as Ginette
Vera Nandi as Signora Nardi
Peppino De Filippo as Gennaro
Barbara Florian as Mirella
Noël Roquevert as Robert
Maso Lotti as Enrico Nardi
Nando Bruno as Riccardo
Geraldina Parrinello as Michélle
Luigi Almirante as Professor Busi Migliavacca
Anna Vita as Impiegata bionda alla Stazione Termini
Marisa Merlini as signora nel vagone letto
Pietro De Vico as Sposino nel vagone letto
Julien Carette as Direttore parigino dei vagoni letto
Checco Durante as Meccanico
Ada Colangeli as Assunta, la portinaia
Paolo Ferrara as direttore romano dei vagoni letto
Janine Marsay as Praline
Monica Clay as Liliana
Laure Paillette as Paillette

Criticism

Gian Piero Brunetta highlights, with regard to this period, the "progressive integration of writers in cinema", so in Signori, in carrozza! we find, among the screenwriters, the name of Brancati as Alberto Moravia had found in Perdizione, and, by listing, writers such as Palazzeschi, Calvino, Pratolini and others engaged in the new role of screenwriters. Brunetta himself sees this commitment, however, simply as a "recruitment of intellectual workforce for the manufacture of products destined for popular markets".^[2]

It has also been noted that Gentlemen, in a carriage! "Is considered a bit of a Cinderella between the films of Zampa and Brancati, overshadowed by the fame of works such as difficult years, easy years, the art of getting by.^[3]

Alberto Moravia said: "In this film there is only one really vital reason: the comparison between the scrounger and the scrounger, between the conductor of the sleeping cars and his impudent and insatiable brother-in-law".^[4]

References

^ Hal Erickson (2009). "New York Times: Rome-Paris-Rome". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 9 August 2008.
^ "Storia Politica della Grande Guerra, 1915–1918. By Piero Melograni. [Storia c Società.] (Bari: Editori Laterza. 1969. Pp. vii, 579. L. 5,000.)". The American Historical Review. 1906–1970. doi:10.1086/ahr/75.5.1485. ISSN 1937-5239.
^ Martínez-Pinna, Jorge (1 April 2019). "Vincenzo Bellelli – Enrico Benelli, "Gli Etruschi. La scrittura, la lingua, la società", Roma, Carocci editore, 2018, 239 pp. [ISBN 978-8-430-9309-0]". Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua. 37 (1): 201–202. doi:10.5209/geri.63874. ISSN 1988-3080.
^ Cognasso, Luigi; Moravia, Alberto (1951). "L'amore coniugale e altri racconti". Books Abroad. 25 (3): 277. doi:10.2307/40090297. ISSN 0006-7431.