La Città si Difende (1951)
Director: Pietro Germi
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Four men steal the takings from a football stadium. They split up, and homegrown neo-realism is crossed with Hollywood-style noir, as one by one they try and fail to break out of the big, unforgiving city. Germi is so determined to forge ahead from one set-piece to the next that his gallery of femmes fatales, predatory underworld figures and grim-faced police barely register as characters, except via little cameos (a cop's look of distaste as he picks up a discarded bra). Visually exciting, but superficial; few will be able to resist mentally replacing the cast with more familiar Hollywood analogues - the Burt Lancaster dumb ox, the Sal Mineo weakling, etc.Author: BBa
Cast & crew
Director: Pietro Germi
Producer: Carlo Civallero
Cast: Renato Baldini, Fausto Tozzi, Paul Müller, Enzo Maggio, Gina Lollobrigida, Tamara Lees full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 85 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now