90 Films & TV Shows Set In Italy During The 1940s
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Side Street Story
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sA combination of a satire on war and a comedy with war as the background. It tells of the ordinary people living on a Naples sidestreet, from 1940 to 1950 under the dominance of the Fascists, the Nazis and then the Allies occupation forces. Primary among the citizens is Gennaro Iovine (Eduard De Filippo)who has a penchant for innocently getting into trouble, and his friend Pasquale (Toto.) The latter is a rail-sweeper who becomes a professional stand-in...a corpse used to conceal contraband...serving jail time for those who don't care to spend the time to do the time...a substitute at a political rally when violence threatens the scheduled speaker
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The Red Danube
๐ฆ๐น Austria ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sBeautiful Maria...the four lives that touched hers were never the same again! โ A Russian ballerina in Vienna tries to flee KGB agents and defect.
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Under the Sun of Rome
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sA lovely, incisive portrait of adolescents in the crowded San Giovanni quarter of Rome during the last years of WWII.
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To Live in Peace
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sVivere in pace is a 1947 Italian comedy-drama war film directed by Luigi Zampa.
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Tragic Hunt
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sSet amongst the Italian peasantry of WW2, Caccia Tragica (Tragic Chase) is set in motion when a truck loaded with money targetted for farming projects is stolen by bandits. The local villagers set aside their petty political and personal differences, banding together to capture the outlaws and recover the loot. The story takes a romantic detour by concentrating on the romance between two young people caught in the middle between the pursuers and the pursued. At the time of its release, Caccia Tragica was perceived as a Communist tract (it was produced by the left-leaning National Association of Italian Partisans). This didn't prevent the film from winning an award at the 1947 Venice Film Festival, quite a coup for first-time director Giueseppe De Santis.
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Paisan
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sSix vignettes follow the Allied invasion from July 1943 to winter 1944, from Sicily north to Venice.
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Shoeshine
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sAt a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride...
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Desire
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sThere's a girl like her in every town! โ Paola, a Milan call girl, returns home to her village in the Abruzzi mountains in an attempt to go straight. Rejected by her father, blackmailed by a former lover, and lusted after by her brother-in-law, she turns to her beloved sister for support. Denied succor, like so many of Rosselliniโs isolated figures, Paola awaits the arrival of her fiancรฉ, who has offered her a new start, but instead decides that life is untenable.
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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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Before Him All Rome Trembled
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sAn opera singer hides an American soldier in his house in Nazi-occupied Rome.
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Rome, Open City
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sPowerful Portrayal of Dignity and Courage โ A realistic portrayal of the underground resistance in Italy in 1945. The film has strong impacting imagery with its mix of fiction and reality that strengthened Italian Neo-realism and the film industry.
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The Last Chance
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sEscaping a Nazi prison train in war-torn Italy, an American and a British soldier set out for the Swiss border and find themselves leading a multi-national party of refugees for the Italian underground.
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A Bell for Adano
๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940sDirector Henry King's WWII drama about American soldiers occupying a tiny Italian village stars John Hodiak, Gene Tierney, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Glenn Langan, Harry Morgan and Eduardo Ciannelli.
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Fiddlers Three
England ๐ฎ๐น Italy The 1940s The 1st CenturyTwo British soldiers and a WREN take refuge at Stonehenge during a thunderstorm, they are struck by lightning and transported back to ancient Rome.