Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
The long months between the landing of the Allies in Sicily and the liberation of Italy were a time of great tragedy and struggle for ordinary Italians. Some chose sides ardently while others struggled merely to survive. There were grave shortages and many individuals were forced into humiliating choices and compromises in their values. Bribes, prostitution, black marketeering, informing, spying, sabotage, theft, and con games became survival skills for many. Rossellini, who had made his name exploring the events in wartime and post-war Italy, returned once again to that theme with his film General della Rovere (1957).
Historical Background: Roberto Rossellini was born on May 8th, 1906, in Rome, Italy, the son of a wealthy architect. Since his father built the first cinema in Rome, Roberto had unlimited free access to cinema as he was growing up. During World War II, Rossellini worked for the Fascist-controlled film industry, producing propaganda pieces. Toward the end of the war, as liberation approached, Rossellini, acting privately, shot footage of the end period of Nazi-occupation and the activities of the Italian resistance, which he later used to create the seminal film Open City. It not only revealed to the world at large some of what had transpired in occupied Italy but also brought to international attention the film movement that became known as Neo-realism. Open City was made with held cameras in pseudo-documentary style using mainly non-professional actors, as much by necessity as artistic intent. Rossellin quickly added two additional films, Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1947), to complete a trilogy.
Rossellini's later work never again quite matched the scope of influence that those three post-war films would have. L'Amore (1947), a vehicle for his then-lover Anna Magnani, had some success and later he directed a series of six films (Stromboli is considered the best) for the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, with whom he had a scandalous affair and, later, a volatile marriage. General Della Rovere (1959) was probably the best of his later works for the big screen. After that, Rossellini turned almost exclusively to directing for television (see The Rise of Louis XIV (1967) for the best of those pieces).
The Story: A conman, Victorio Emanuele Bardone (Vittorio De Sica), survives by deceiving desperate families with sons and husbands in Nazi captivity in Genoa, during the lean years of Mussolini's Salo' Republic in northern Italy, after the Bodoglio Armistice and occupation of southern Italy by the Allies. Feigning more influence than he actually has and sometimes operating under the alias of "Colonel Grimaldi," he extracts money from desperate countrymen with promises of protecting their loved ones from deportation to Nazi prison camps in Germany or possible release. It's not that he makes no effort to achieve these ends; he even occasionally succeeds by bribing a Nazi junior officer. The problem is that he frequently fritters away the payments he receives in the casino and invariably keeps the packages intended for prisoners from their families for his own use. He also tries to peddle fake "gems" to the unsuspecting, though with little success in a Genoa strapped for resources. He is not above pawning the jewelry of his current lover, Valeria (Giovanna Ralli), a singer, or his ex-lover, Olga (Giovanna Ralli), now a prostitute in Madame Vera's (Mary Greco) brothel.
The local Nazi commandant, Colonel Mueller (Hannes Messemer), is initially impressed with Bardone's acumen but later discovers his con game and bribery of one of his Nazi sergeants. Col. Mueller offers Bardone a choice: a long prison sentence or impersonation of an officer of the Resistance in order to gain crucial information for the Nazi cause. The latter choice comes with the promise of one million lire and safe passage to Switzerland. The Nazis have recently shot and killed General della Rovere, who was on his way to act as a liaison with the leader of the resistance, Fabrizio. The Nazis have rounded up a group of nine Italians in a sweep and are certain that one of them is Fabrizio. Col. Mueller wants Bardone to masquerade as the General until Fabrizio makes his identity known to him.
Bardone reluctantly agrees, but is gradually exposed to the moral high ground and commitment of the incarcerated resistance fighters. In his cell in San Vittore Prison, he finds inscriptions left by brave prisoners who had lived there before him, before being executed. The inmates' barber, Banchelli, has been condemned to death by a Nazi military court and has been awaiting execution for three months. Bardone is impressed by Barchelli's stoic courage. Later, Barchelli is brutally tortured but refuses to provide the Germans with the information they seek. Afterwards, he dies in Bardone's cell. Bardone is also tortured, though not so close to the point of death. Back in his cell, Bardone receives a poignant letter from Countess della Rovere, who has been taken in by the Nazi's deception and believes her husband alive and in captivity. In it is a photograph of the Countess and "his" children. The Countess states that she is reminded of what the General had once said to her:
When a man doesn't know which course to take, he must choose the more difficult."
She concludes, "Whatever happens, we will be worthy of you." Bardone now has some sense of the true character of the man whom he is impersonating. Most readers will be able to intuit how the story generally plays out from here, but I'll add no more, so as not to spoil the drama of the story.
Themes: Moral fiber is always woven into the soft ground of human personality and circumstances. The noblest of characters, with a change of circumstances, can turn into a slug and the most devious and cynical conman into an unlikely hero. Obviously, we all prefer the second kind of transformation to the first. Here, Bardone, the compulsive gambler and self-centered rascal has lived a life of dissipation and deceit, only to find an heroic expression when the crucial moment arises. An interesting tangential observation is that Vittorio De Sica himself knew both extremes of human endeavors. He left us with a great legacy of fine films, both as director and as actor, but he also left his family saddled with monstrous debts – because he, like his character Bardone, was a compulsive gambler.
Sometimes people of dubious character rise to an occasion. The American President James Garfield, when he was running for the presidency, selected Chet Arthur as a running mate for "geographical balance," despite Arthur's rather sleazy record as a New York politician. Arthur then succeeded to the presidency after Garfield's assassination. Even Arthur's best friends were disconcerted and fearful for the well-being of the country! One was quoted as saying, when he heard the news of the assassination, "My God! Chet Arthur President!" All the evidence to that point suggested that Arthur would be a disaster as President, but he rose to the occasion, conducted himself with dignity and honor, and, although not one of the great presidents, he became a good one. I keep telling my kids, when they teeter on disillusionment over the results of the last election, that we can always hope that G.W., freed from concern about reelection, could conceivably elevate himself as a man and a leader, stand up to the neo-conservative influences in his administration, and actually become worthy of his position. One can always hope!
Production Values: This is not a great script, given that one can see early on where it is heading, but it was well-paced, in my opinion, and free of both clichéd dialog and excess melodrama. The cinematography was far crisper and clearer that had been the case in Rossellin's masterpieces of Neo-realism. One interesting technical sidelight of this film is that it was the first in which Rossellii tested out a new motorized zoom lens, called the "Pancinor," which he invented.
The foremost value of this film, along with the drama of its script, is the performance by Vittorio De Sica. De Sica was not only a great director (see Shoeshine (1946), The Bicycle Thief (1948), Miracle in Milan (1951), Umberto D. (1952), Two Women (1960), Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963), and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), for examples), but also a much-in-demand actor. He gives a brilliant performance here and in such other films as The Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953). He was effective as both a dramatic and a comedic actor. His performance alone makes a viewing of the present film worthwhile. He is ably abetted, however, by some strong supporting cast members. Hannes Messemer is very good as Col. Mueller. Vittorio Caprioli gives a splendid performance as Banchelli. His other work includes Zazie (1960) and Tout Va Bien (1972). Sandra Milo had a rather limited role here, as the prostitute Olga, but she impresses during her few minutes on the screen and later made a name for herself, co-starring in Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2 (1963). Giovanna Ralli effectively plays the blond bombshell, Valeria, and later appeared in Let's Talk about Women (1964).
Bottom-Line: They say that there are only about thirty different stories that get told over and over again. The essential story of General Della Rovere – the redemption of a man of low moral character by an act of genuine grace through self-sacrifice – has been told before and sometimes better than here. One thinks, for example of that great novel A Tale of Two Cities. Consequently, the general nature of the outcome of this film was predictable, even if the exact form that the story would take was not. By contrast, Rossellini's famous neorealism-launching films in the immediate aftermath of World War II (Open City and Paisan, for example) were more original in content and generally less predictable in outcome. Nevertheless, I found myself enjoying General Della Rovere more than I had those two other films. For one thing, there's something to be said for superlative professional actors, such as Vittorio De Sica, over the use of primarily nonprofessionals, even though the use of nonprofessionals is sometimes effective and can add to a sense of realism. More importantly for me, however, is that in General Della Rovere, Rossellini manages to keep his tendency toward excessive melodrama more in check. He lets the story tell itself, perhaps because his personal investment in the story was not quite as profound as in his first post-war works. Admittedly, however, General Della Rovere is not as significant to the history of cinema or as original in concept as are the films that made Rossellini an internationally recognizable name. General della Rovere is in Italian with easily-read English subtitles and has a running time of 130 minutes.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Italy:
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A petty con man living in Italy during World War II is forced by the Nazis into impersonating an executed Italian general and is transformed into a tr...More at Family Video
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