Italian prisoner The war ended a couple of years ago, but former Italian soldiers are still in American captivity. In California, in Camp 119. The morals there are very democratic. Prisoners of war move freely around the camp, listen to the radio, write letters home and receive mail from home, joke with security, demand new lamps for the receiver. Italians come from different regions: Rome, Milan, Naples, Florence, Venice, Turin, Sicilian Catania... Prisoners of war listen to the songs of their native places and remember the stories of peacetime.
Roman Giuseppe Mancini (Fabrizi) is the father of five children. On weekends, he liked to drive out to the Roman Forum, where the children frolic on their own while their father flirted with beautiful tourists.
But the Neapolitan Don Vincenzino (De Sica) quickly squandered the state of his noble ancestors in the casino and was indebted to the whole city. His countryman Gennarino (De Filippo) both on a civilian, and in war, and in captivity was a trickster who can fool everyone.
Aldo Fabrizzi had a hand in the script to make his character stand out from all the other characters in the film. So did Vittorio De Sica. The third star of the film, Peppino De Phillippo was enough to improvise, poking fun at others and his Gennarino. But the other characters, not receiving so much powerful script support, rolled back to the third-rate plan. From this, the film looks very heterogeneous: bright episodes are replaced by faded ones.
It is noteworthy that the film was shot two years after the war, so that the audience watched the story told in it, as if reading a newspaper editorial on the topic of the day. I will also mention that one of the operators was the future genius of the terrible stories of Mario Bava.
6 out of 10