Bread, Love, and Jealousy

Pane, amore e gelosia

Italy

1954

97 Min

Black and White

Italian

Currently 1.9/5 Stars.
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SCR Luigi Comencini, Vincenzo Talarico, Eduardo De Filippo, Ettore Maria Margadonna

CAST Vittorio De Sica, Gina Lollobrigida, Marisa Merlini, Roberto Risso, Maria-Pia Casilio, Virgilio Riento, Saro Urzì, Tina Pica, Tecla Scarano, Vittoria Crispo, Memmo Carotenuto, Fausto Guerzoni, Nino Vingelli, Gigi Reder, Nico Pepe, Attilio Torelli, Checco Rissone, Mario Meniconi, Renato Navarrini, Nino Imparato, Anna Arena, Marcella Melnati, Piero Pastore, Amalia Pellegrini, Yvonne Sanson, Massimo Ungaretti, Vinicio Vingelli

In a small Italian village, Maria De Ritas is engaged to army Lieutenant Pietro Stelluti. Stelluti’s superior officer, Marshal Antonio Carotenuto, is contemplating marriage to Annarella Mirziano, but he will be forced to resign if he marries Annarella, since she has an illegitimate child and that is against regulations for army officers. When Stelluti leaves town for a few weeks, the town-gossips create an affair out of the innocent relationship between Maria and Antonio. Stelluti returns and accuses Maria of infidelity, and, she, in reprisal, runs off and joins a traveling theatrical troupe as a dancer. Antonio, after convincing Annarella that he has not betrayed her love, encounters more trouble when the father of Annarella’s child shows up,and asks that she and the child go away with him. Antonio tells Annarella that it her decision to make, and she chooses the child’s father and goes away with him… —IMDb

Director

Luigi Comencini

Luigi Comencini (8 June 1916, Salò – 6 April 2007) was an Italian film director. Together with Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Mario Monicelli, he was considered among the masters of the commedia all’italiana genre.His daughters Cristina and Francesca are both film directors.

Patron, together with Alberto Lattuada and Mario Ferrari, of Cineteca Italiana, the first Italian film library, in the post-war period Luigi Comencini became a film critic, initially for “L’Avanti!”, and later for the weekly “Tempo”. In ‘46 he made his directing debut with the documentary “Children in cities (Bambini in città)”; two years later he made his first feature length film, “Guagliò (Probito rubare)”. Commercial fortune, nonetheless, was only to smile on him with the diptych “Bread, love and dreams (Pane, amore e fantasia)” (1953) and with “Frisky (Pane, amore e gelosia” (1954), a prime example of that pink neorealism destined to prove so popular in Italian cinema. The Sixties saw him play a leading… read more

Luigi Comencini (8 June 1916, Salò – 6 April 2007) was an Italian film director. Together with Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Mario Monicelli, he was considered among the masters of the commedia all’italiana genre.His daughters Cristina and Francesca are both film directors.

Patron, together with Alberto Lattuada and Mario Ferrari, of Cineteca Italiana, the first Italian film library, in the post-war period Luigi Comencini became a film critic, initially for “L’Avanti!”, and later for the weekly “Tempo”. In ‘46 he made his directing debut with the documentary “Children in cities (Bambini in città)”; two years later he made his first feature length film, “Guagliò (Probito rubare)”. Commercial fortune, nonetheless, was only to smile on him with the diptych “Bread, love and dreams (Pane, amore e fantasia)” (1953) and with “Frisky (Pane, amore e gelosia” (1954), a prime example of that pink neorealism destined to prove so popular in Italian cinema. The Sixties saw him play a leading role in the genesis of the commedia all’italiana: “Everybody go home (Tutti a casa)” (1960), a scathing look at the behaviour of the Italians immediately after the armistice of 8th September 1943, is his most important work of the period, although others deserve a mention, including “Jail break (A cavallo della tigre)” (1961), a film with a strong narrative framework set in prison, and “The police commissioner (Il commissario)” (1962), a black comedy with romantic overtones that was quite ahead of its time. Later, Comencini was happiest portraying the world of children – something he had already tried his hand at in earlier works: it was his focus, for example, in “Misunderstood (Incompreso)” (1966), a beautiful condensation of the Florence Montgomery novel of the same name; in the TV adaptations “The adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio)” (1972) and “Heart (Cuore)” (1984), so fondly remembered by generations of viewers; in the wonderful “Eugenio (Voltati, Eugenio)” (1980), which probes the relationship between different generations with irony kept in check by austerity. He also contributed to light comedy with his unique, biting parable “The scientific cardplayer (Lo scopone scientifico)” (1972), the satiric whodunnit “The Sunday woman (La donna della domenica)” (1975), the bitter and atypical “The cat (Il gatto)” (1977), the totally bleak “Traffic jam (L’ingorgo)” (1979) and the allegory-cum-fairy story “Looking for Jesus (Cercasi Gesù)” (1982). Some less conclusive films followed, after which, health problems forced him to work only sporadically. His films constitute the legacy of one of Italy’s most personal directors, whose enormous merits have perhaps been underestimated. —italica.rai.it

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