The Gold of Naples

The Gold of Naples (Italian: L'oro di Napoli [ˈlɔːro di ˈnaːpoli]) is a 1954 Italian anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.[2] In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."[3]

L'Oro di Napoli
Poster
Directed byVittorio De Sica
Written byGiuseppe Marotta (novel)
Vittorio De Sica
Cesare Zavattini
Produced byDino De Laurentiis
Marcello Girosi
Carlo Ponti
StarringSilvana Mangano
Sophia Loren
Paolo Stoppa
Totò
CinematographyCarlo Montuori
Edited byEraldo Da Roma
Music byAlessandro Cicognini
Production
company
Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica
Distributed byParamount Films
Release dates
23 December 1954 (Italy)
11 February 1957 (USA)
Running time
131 minutes (Italy)
107 minutes (USA)
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian
Box office$72,000 (US rental)[1]

Plot

The film is a tribute to Naples, where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of 6 Neapolitan episodes: a clown exploited by a hoodlum; an unfaithful pizza seller (Loren) losing her wedding ring; the funeral of a child; the impoverished inveterate gambler Count Prospero B. being reduced to force his doorman's preteen kid to play cards with him (and losing regularly); the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa, a prostitute; the exploits of "professor" Ersilio Miccio, a "wisdom seller" who "solves problems".

Cast

"Il guappo" ("The Racketeer")
  • Totò – Don Saverio Petrillo
  • Lianella Carell – Carolina, Saverio's wife
  • Pasquale Cennamo – Don Carmine Savarone, the squatter
  • Agostino Salvietti – Gennaro Esposito, the graveyard mourner

"Pizze a credito" ("Pizza on Credit")

"Funeralino"
  • Teresa De Vita – The mother

"I giocatori" ("The Gambler")
  • Vittorio De Sica – Count Prospero B.
  • Pierino Bilancioni – Gennarino, the young gambler
  • Lars Borgström – Federico, the doorkeeper
  • Mario Passante – Giovanni, the butler
  • Irene Montaldo – Countess B.

"Teresa" ("Theresa")

"Il professore"
  • Eduardo De Filippo – Don Ersilio Miccio
  • Tina Pica – The elderly lady
  • Nino Imparato – Gennaro
  • Gianni Crosio – Alfonso Maria di Sant'Agata dei Fornai

Release

The original Italian release comprises six segments: "Il guappo", "Pizze a credito", "Funeralino", "I giocatori", "Teresa", and "Il professore". The US version omits the third and the sixth, leaving the following: "The Racketeer", "Pizza on Credit", "The Gambler", and "Theresa".[4]

Paramount did not take up its option to release the film in the United States and it wasn't until February 1957 that the film was finally distributed there, being shown at the Paris Theater in New York for 18 weeks, earning the distributor, Distributors Corporation of America, $72,000.[1] The film was voted one of the Ten Best Foreign Language Films of 1957 by The New York Times.[4]

References
  1. "'Gold of Naples' Pays Off". Variety. June 12, 1957. p. 4. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  2. "Festival de Cannes: The Gold of Naples". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
  3. "Ecco i cento film italiani da salvare Corriere della Sera". www.corriere.it. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  4. "The Gold of Naples: Miscellaneous Notes". TCM. Retrieved 3 December 2022.


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