36 Films & TV Shows Set In Italy During The 1930s
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Love and Anarchy
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sSet in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini. There he falls in love with one of the whores.
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Roma
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930s The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1940sThe fall of the Roman Empire 1931-1972. โ A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.
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The Conformist
๐ซ๐ท France ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940s The 1930s The 1910sA dazzling movie โ A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
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The Yellow Rolls-Royce
England ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sEverything Happens in the Yellow Rolls Royce! โ One Rolls-Royce belongs to three vastly different owners, starting with Lord Charles, who buys the car for his wife as an anniversary present. Another owner is Paolo Maltese, a mafioso who purchases the car during a trip to Italy and leaves it with his girlfriend while he returns to Chicago. Later, the car is owned by American widow Gerda, who joins the Yugoslavian resistance against the invading Nazis.
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Time of Indifference
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sSteiger and Cardinale in the Year's Strangest Love Story โ A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.
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Roaring Years
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sIn this satire inspired by Nikolai Gogolโs The Government Inspector (aka The Inspector General) and transported to fascist era Italy, the (supposed) incognito visit of a Roman fascist official to a tiny country town shakes deeply the ruling class and their lack of integrity.
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The Glass Mountain
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sAn aspiring composer, in the British Air Force for WWII, is downed in Italy and rescued by an Italian girl. He returns home to his wife, inspired to write an opera and aware that he's fallen in love with his rescuer.
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The Searching Wind
District of Columbia ๐ซ๐ท France ๐ฉ๐ช Germany ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sWith a screenplay adapted by Lillian Hellman from her own play, director William Dieterle's 1946 drama stars Robert Young as a U.S. ambassador in Europe in the years before WW2.
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This Is the Night
๐ซ๐ท France ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sWhen Claire Mathewson's (Thelma Todd) husband Stephen (Cary Grant) comes back unexpectedly from the 1932 Summer Olympics, where he was supposed to compete in the javelin throw, he discovers the train tickets for a romantic Venice getaway she has planned with her lover Gerald (Roland Young). Gerald's friend Bunny (Charles Ruggles) lies and says that the tickets are actually for Gerald and his wife. With Stephen still suspicious, Gerald must find a fake wife to go to Venice with him. He tries to hire the actress Chou-Chou (Claire Dodd), but since her boyfriend is a jealous man, she gives the job to out-of-work Germaine (Lili Damita), who needs the 2000 franc fee to keep from starving. At first, Gerald thinks she is too demure, but she soon convinces him that she can pretend to be a glamorous wife.
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Pinocchio
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1930sSet during the rise of fascism in Mussolini's Italy, Pinocchio is a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father's expectations.