In all truthfulness, I haven't been crazy about Vittorio De Sica outside his two most well-known films (Umberto D. And Bicycle Thieves). But I still thought this was pretty solid overall. It's simple and a little dull in parts, but for a good deal of its runtime, it does feature the qualities that most people seem to really love about De Sica as a filmmaker.
If there is one thing that stood out, it was probably the performance of the kid here, played by a six-year-old Luciano De Ambrosis. He's the heart of this film, and gave quite a moving and effective performance (or, given his age, and the way child-acting often is, maybe De Sica deserves a good deal of credit for that too).
If there is one thing that stood out, it was probably the performance of the kid here, played by a six-year-old Luciano De Ambrosis. He's the heart of this film, and gave quite a moving and effective performance (or, given his age, and the way child-acting often is, maybe De Sica deserves a good deal of credit for that too).