It's set in early 1950s Italy and mostly follows three conmen who make their living swindling rural and smalltown peasants.
Augusto (Broderick Crawford) is a 48-year-old man, separated from his wife and with a daughter he sees maybe once a year. Raul "Picasso" (Richard Basehart) is a young swindler with a wife, Iris (Giulietta Masina), and a young daughter. He has dreams of a career as an artist. Roberto (Franco Fabrizi) is a loud-mouthed single guy whose brashness both gets him into trouble and through the trouble.
The film shows several swindles in detail, including posing as a monsignor, a priest, and their driver from the Vatican leading farmers to treasure in their fields in an unmarked grave of a murder victim. The swindle is getting the farmer to pay up to 500,000 lire for 500 masses for the murder victim. But the landowner gets to keep the valueless "treasure." The other swindle is posing as government officials arranging living quarters for poor townspeople and bilking them for the deposit. Eventually, after Iris learns the true nature of Raul's work, he finally returns home.
At a low point, after failing to make a deal with another swindler, Augusto meets his daughter in the street and learns she needs money for school. He promises to help her, but before he can do so, he is arrested and jailed when he is caught by a former victim.
Upon release from jail, Augusto hooks up with another gang of conmen, and they repeat the "buried treasure" swindle with a poor family that includes an 18-year-old daughter crippled with polio. When the gang gathers to split the take, Augusto claims he gave the money back to the family because of their circumstances. But when they search him, they find the money on him. They beat Augusto and leave him to die by a road in the mountains.
The film the second in a Fellini trilogy about loneliness. "La Strada" was the first, and "Il Bidone" is followed by "Nights of Cabiria." "Il Bidone" was the most poorly received of the three and did not premiere in the United States until 1964.
Nonetheless, I found it an engaging story, albeit somewhat odd in having two North American actors (Crawford and Basehart) having their voices dubbed into Italian. Something of a preview of all the later spaghetti westerns that had Italian voices dubbed into English, I guess. The loneliness theme is deeply rooted, and the final lengthy scene of Augusto's lonely death on a roadside is compelling.
Augusto (Broderick Crawford) is a 48-year-old man, separated from his wife and with a daughter he sees maybe once a year. Raul "Picasso" (Richard Basehart) is a young swindler with a wife, Iris (Giulietta Masina), and a young daughter. He has dreams of a career as an artist. Roberto (Franco Fabrizi) is a loud-mouthed single guy whose brashness both gets him into trouble and through the trouble.
The film shows several swindles in detail, including posing as a monsignor, a priest, and their driver from the Vatican leading farmers to treasure in their fields in an unmarked grave of a murder victim. The swindle is getting the farmer to pay up to 500,000 lire for 500 masses for the murder victim. But the landowner gets to keep the valueless "treasure." The other swindle is posing as government officials arranging living quarters for poor townspeople and bilking them for the deposit. Eventually, after Iris learns the true nature of Raul's work, he finally returns home.
At a low point, after failing to make a deal with another swindler, Augusto meets his daughter in the street and learns she needs money for school. He promises to help her, but before he can do so, he is arrested and jailed when he is caught by a former victim.
Upon release from jail, Augusto hooks up with another gang of conmen, and they repeat the "buried treasure" swindle with a poor family that includes an 18-year-old daughter crippled with polio. When the gang gathers to split the take, Augusto claims he gave the money back to the family because of their circumstances. But when they search him, they find the money on him. They beat Augusto and leave him to die by a road in the mountains.
The film the second in a Fellini trilogy about loneliness. "La Strada" was the first, and "Il Bidone" is followed by "Nights of Cabiria." "Il Bidone" was the most poorly received of the three and did not premiere in the United States until 1964.
Nonetheless, I found it an engaging story, albeit somewhat odd in having two North American actors (Crawford and Basehart) having their voices dubbed into Italian. Something of a preview of all the later spaghetti westerns that had Italian voices dubbed into English, I guess. The loneliness theme is deeply rooted, and the final lengthy scene of Augusto's lonely death on a roadside is compelling.