Fernando Previtali

Music, ballet, folk dances and mime eliciting the spirit of Naples across the ages are loosely tied together by the comedic wanderings and exploits of the Esposito family.

A Sicilian professor who moves to Rome gets lost in the maze of Roman ministries and gives in to corruption.

In the movie La valigia dei sogni (The Suitcase of Dreams, Italy, 1953) directed by Luigi Comencini, some sequences from Cenere are inserted. The protagonist is a former silent film actor who has saved old movies of his time from destruction, and uses them to set up recreational performances at schools. After an accidental fire and the risk of prison, he meets a rich producer who helps him to build a film museum.

A Sicilian nobleman is very jealous of his mistress and when she gets married flies off his handle and commits a murder of which an innocent man is accused. He is however tormented by his conscience.

Produced in Italy in breathtaking Technicolor, this biographical story of Puccini (played by L'avventura's Gabriele Ferzetti) spans his creative life from early student days to the height of success, including his early flop Madama Butterfly and his incomplete Turandot. Along the way he encounters three women who change his life, including a sexy, beautiful singer (Two for the Road's Nadia Gray) whom he drops for a small town girl (Sirocco's Marta Toren), and a servant girl who commits suicide over him. Well-selected excerpts from Manon, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Turandot are featured along with other Puccini music, including the voice of Beniamino Gigli. Sets, costumes and production values are first class, all sumptuously filmed by Claude Renoir.

The story of a woman who marries the brother of a guardian who was killed by her brother.

Antonio Scaparro (Toto) is obsessed for women. He invents his own way to hide from them - in the attic of his house.

In 1941 an Italian regiment known as the Savoy Cavalry is sent by Mussolini to Russia to assist the German invasion. After crossing an extensive area of Soviet territory the men arrive at a village that seems deserted. A patrol sent on reconnaissance comes under machine-gun fire from the top of a bell-tower.

Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in 1950s Italy, "The Overcoat" is the story of a poor city hall clerk whose only desire is to buy a new overcoat.

In Italy, small-town newlyweds Wanda and Ivan Cavalli embark on their honeymoon in the big city of Rome. Ivan dutifully wants to keep appointments with family and church, but Wanda is only interested in meeting her favorite photo-strip star known as "The White Sheik". While Wanda impetuously sneaks away to locate the object of her affections, disconsolate Ivan tries his hardest to keep up appearances with the couple's relatives.

Turn-of-the-century Naples. Salvatore Ruotolo and his wife are murdered and their bodies are found in different locations. Since the evidence points to a crime by the Neapolitan crime organization, the Camorra, fear and corruption cause serious hindrances to the investigation by police authorities. In charge is a young and courageous judge who, using evidence discovered by chance, tries to reconstruct the story of the double murder. The plot that the judge must unravel is very complicated.

The story of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1849 campaign to free Italy from Austrian domination.

The story of a group of Sicilian miners and their families decide to illegally cross the border to France and their hardships.

A combination of a satire on war and a comedy with war as the background. It tells of the ordinary people living on a Naples sidestreet, from 1940 to 1950 under the dominance of the Fascists, the Nazis and then the Allies occupation forces. Primary among the citizens is Gennaro Iovine (Eduard De Filippo)who has a penchant for innocently getting into trouble, and his friend Pasquale (Toto.) The latter is a rail-sweeper who becomes a professional stand-in...a corpse used to conceal contraband...serving jail time for those who don't care to spend the time to do the time...a substitute at a political rally when violence threatens the scheduled speaker

Returning home after a night of love spent in a woodman's hut with Orsola, Pietro is arrested by the police for a crime he did not commit. His mother and youngest sister, Rosaria, go to Orsola begging her to provide Pietro with the alibi that will clear him. But Rocco, Orsola's brother, dreading a family scandal, constrains Orsola to silence. Condemned despite his innocence, Pietro escapes from prison, but the police track him down and kill him, and his mother, before the eyes of Rosaria. Years pass, and one day Rocco stumbles upon a half-frozen young woman lying in the snow. He takes her home and confides her to the care of Orsola. Later, yielding to the pleas of Orsola, Rocco and Rocco's son, Salvatore, the girl stays on in the house, and Salvatore falls in love with the beautiful stranger, who is careful to keep the family members from learning she is Rosaria, the grown up sister of Pietro seeking revenge for the deaths of her brother and mother.

On his way to his own wedding, a young man saves a woman who attempted suicide by jumping into a river and falls for her.

Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.

Driven by the constant quarrels with his wife and humiliated by a rich Milanese industrialist after asking him for a job, an unemployed person decides to steal a car from a garage guarded by a friend.

Felice Manetti is a poor tramp in Turin who, due to his ingenuity, often finds himself in trouble.

On his way to Africa, Don Pietro, a young missionary priest has his suitcase stolen in the station of Naples. While trying to retrieve his baggage he realizes how miserable the city of Naples is. Then he decides that his mission is there in Naples, He creates his 'The Boys' Town' a shelter for poor kids, aka the 'scugnizzi' (street urchins), with a view to putting them back on the right track. Some of the kids, though, do not play by the rules just using that 'home' as a convenient place for hiding the product of their thefts...

The story of Jean Valjean, still pursued by Javert, continues with a love developing between Cosette and radical student Marius, a blackmailing attempt by suspicious innkeeper Thenardier, and a climax on the barricades of Paris.

This flashback heavy melodrama is a loose adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata named after the Beethoven piece. The story concerns marriage, divorce, love, carnal lust and jealousy.

Jean Valjean, pursued through the years for a minor infraction by the implacable policeman Javert, attempts to create a life for himself and for his adopted daughter Cosette amid the revolutionary struggles of France.

Leo Bianchetti has just finished his military service but then is again called to arms; after 10 years on various fronts, he finds himself again in Italy to guard a bridge destroyes by the Germans that he doesn't want to leave.

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

A peasant leader under the enlightened despotism of Empress Catherine the Great, and a love story.

Giovanni used to be a humble, mild-mannered government clerk whose life was turned upside down when he met Giulio, a notorious forger who at once set about manipulating the over-confident man. Giovanni did what he should never have done: he associated himself with the crook. Giulio soon laid hands on Giovanni's money, ruined his career and manhandled him into marrying his own mistress, the beautiful Ginevra. It was of course an unhappy marriage but Giovanni found a little solace when his son Ciro was born. Seven years later though, Wanzer resurfaced...

In a post-war Rome (1946) a cat burglar inadvertently saves the life of a would-be suicide man who returns from the war to find that he has been betrayed by his fiancée while fighting in the war. From that moment the thief takes the ex-soldier under his wing. They leave house together for a night full of misadventures. In a streets of Rome they meet the struggling typist who can’t pay her rent and opts to street life; a wandering amnesiac who lost his memory and keeps asking everyone “Do you recognize me?”. Thieves, gamblers, hookers, policemen, soldiers and endless chain of cigarette-smoking and alcohol/espresso-drinking.

During Fascism and after WWII, a school porter sacrifices himself so his son, who is slightly ashamed of a lowly background, can become a respected professor.The film also takes a few jabs at Italy's rapid governmental reshuffles.

A neorealist tribute to the Italian resistance fighters of World War II.

The ordinary life of the prudent employee Mr. Travet accelerates as he and her wife meet his new chief.

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.

The famous composer's life and his career. His love story with Isabella Colbran, the soprano who was to become his wife and the singer in all his operas up to the unfortunate day she lost her voice.

Renzo and Lucia's love story is jeopardized by Don Rodrigo, a wicked nobleman, who is interested in Lucia. When she refuses his attentions he has her kidnapped and brought to a convent whose prioress is a nun as wicked as he is. The two youths will have to go through a lot of misfortunes before being reunited and being able to marry.

Franco, a young man of noble descent, marries Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother's will.

Non-musical account of Puccini's opera: Tosca and Cavaradossi are in love, but the tyrant Scarpia desires Tosca and oppresses Cavaradossi who is fighting for freedom.

Umberto Solaro loses the love of his life Speranza, a noble but poor girl who has been forced to marry a rich Austrian army officer. Heartbroken Umberto becomes a riding instructor but during a competition his horse dies and he decides to give up equitation and become an aviator.