Classic 40s Movie: “Bicycle Thieves”
September is Classic 40s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Megaen Kelly.
Movie Title: Bicycle Thieves (released in the US as The Bicycle Thief)
Year: 1948
Writer: Screenplay by Cesare Zavattini, based on a novel by Luigi Bartolini
Lead Actors: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, and Vittorio Antonucci
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Plot summary: In post-WWII Rome lines of the poor are everywhere: at public water pumping stations, bus terminals, and employment agencies. One of these poor — Antonio Ricci — is about to have his life changed. After two years without a job, he is given one as a movie bill poster, but the job requires a bicycle. Desperately needing the job to support his family of four — his wife, young son and baby — with the aid of his long-suffering wife Antonio is able to buy back his pawned bicycle. However, it is stolen on the first day of his new job. What follows is a day-long journey of trying to recover the means to his family’s salvation.
Why I Think This is a Classic 1940s Film
Just like all things social/cultural in nature, cinema after WWII was changed forever. Different nationalities developed their own strongly unique film forms at this time, from the dark, cynical Film Noir of American cinema to the gritty, painful reality of Italian Neorealism. It is this latter category that Bicycle Thieves takes center stage.
Neorealism as a film movement only lasted for a dozen years or so, but the impact of the films made in this style has been profound in world cinema through the many decades since. Films from this ‘golden era of Italian cinema’ predominately featured non-actors filmed in natural settings, with the stories focused on the plight of the poor, the changing political environment and how to rediscover / recover their national identity.
Part of the reason for using the natural settings in Rome, which plays a central role in Bicycle Thieves, is utilitarian in nature; as with many of the buildings in the Eternal City, the Cinecittà film studios were devastated in the war.
Leading Italian filmmaker De Sica — who would go on to win many major international awards over the course of his career including many for Bicycle Thieves — chose a simple plot so that the film could focus on the characters in the story. And while many other directors may have wanted to win audiences’ hearts with sentimentality, that does not happen in Bicycle Thieves. We can sympathize with Antonio’s predicament, but he lacks the qualities himself as a character that allows audiences to empathize with him.
In my humble opinion, the positive emotional character, meaning the one that audiences can root for more easily, is Antonio’s son, Bruno, also played by a non-actor. And while many child stars love to turn on the cute factor, the young boy Enzo Staiola who plays Bruno does not. Mature beyond his years — he is the actual bread winner in the family — Bruno emotionally, physically and most importantly morally supports his father. It is clear that he idolizes his father and wants him to succeed, even while the older man is at turns indifferent to the boy or, taking his understandable frustration, out on him, slaps his son.
And in keeping with the true nature of neorealism, there is no happy ending for Antonio and by extension his family.
When it was released, Bicycle Thieves was criticized by many Italian film critics, running the gamut of disliking the film because it portrayed Italians in a negative light to the writer of the novel which the film was based on feeling betrayed because the political aspects were ignored. However, the international reception was wildly different, with the film almost universally praised and many critics going as far to say that it was the greatest film ever made. This was 1948.
Bicycle Thieves still finds itself on the list of many ‘best films of all time’.
My Favorite Moment in the Movie
Bicycle Thieves is not an easy film to watch; it is too real. So it’s more difficult to pick a ‘favorite moment’ to show. Instead, I will let you see a non-narrated trailer for the film which gives an idea of what to expect:
After Antonio has slapped Bruno, he tries to console the boy but the youngster is having none of it. Although Bruno has acted like an adult through much of the film, this scene provides one line of dialogue that truly shows his age. After beseeching his son to forgive him Bruno says:
“When we get home I’m telling mama!”
Bruno is a child after all.
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie
Because poverty brought about by the war was so widespread in Rome, De Sica uses images to support this sad reality. Lines of things, both horizontally and vertically, are used to great effect. There are lines of people at — public pumping stations, bus terminals, employment agencies — and lines of objects — bedding, bicycles and other items — all showing the hardship of Italian people in the late 1940s.
In contrast to this, there are also mobs of people who act in true mob fashion. Antonio and Bruno are often involved in the incident that generates a mob but do not take part as cogs of the mob as it were. So they are both of the people but also isolated from them, yet the ending sees them swallowed up into the mass of humanity walking away from the camera.
Bicycle Thieves is an amazing, yet difficult film but deserves its place in cinema history.
We already have a set of classic 50s movies, 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 40s movies. And thanks to the GITS community, we’ve got 30 movies in the works, one for each day of the month!
Those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts. If you haven’t sent yours to me, please do so as soon as you can!!!
Act of Violence — Eric Rodriguez
Arsenic and Old Lace — Gisela Wehrl
Bicycle Thieves — Megaen Kelly
Brief Encounter — Emily Bonkoski
Casablanca — Paul Graunke
Double Indemnity — Susan Winchell
Five Graves to Cairo — Jeff Gibson
Foreign Correspondent — Doc Kane
Here Comes Mr. Jordan — Wayne Kline
His Girl Friday — John Henderson
It’s a Wonderful Life — David Laudenslager
Key Largo — Will King
Laura — Melinda Mahaffey Icden
Les enfants du paradis — Brendan Howley
Mrs. Miniver — Traci Nell Peterson
Notorious — Christine Henton
Now Voyager — Melissa Privette
Out of the Past — Brantley Aufill
Rope — Lance Morgan
The Bank Dick — Bob Saenz
The Best Years of Their Lives — Shaun Parker
The Big Sleep — Ipsita Barik
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir — Annie Wood
The Long Voyage Home — Vincent Martini
The Lost Weekend — Liz Warner
The Maltese Falcon — Roy Gordon
The Ox-Bow Incident — Clay Mitchell
The Philadelphia Story — Kristen Demaline
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock — David Joyner
The Third Man — Harry Cooke
To Have and Have Not — Felicity Flesher
Thanks to everyone who steps up for this ongoing project!
For the original post explaining the series, go here.
For all of the 40s movies featured in the series, go here.
Click REPLY and see you in comments about today’s classic 40s movie!
