1930s Italian Movies

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The rich banker Rosen of Livorno fear that the Bonapartist will take all his gold, so he is hiding it inside a cuckoo clock.

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Rogelia, the orphan of an Asturian miner who died in a work-related accident, marries Máximo, a man as robust as jealous, drunk and violent. But when her husband is jailed, the woman will take advantage to escape with the doctor of the village so as to see the world and perhaps to form a family.

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An Italian blacksmith who emigrated is wounded during the war on the French front, losing his memory. Hospitalized in a German hospital, he recovers it three years later and returns home from Tunisia, happy for the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes and the inauguration of the city of Littoria.

After several unsuccessful suicide attempts, Totò finds himself in an animal asylum.

The film portrays the comic adventures of a group of summertime travellers. Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.

It is only the prospect of having a child that eventually draws otherwise strictly urban new wife Suzette to the farm of an Italian working class family. She really doesn't like the country or her in laws.

Adventures of two provincial actors looking for anyway done with something to eat. They are joined by a girl, Lili. They represent a magic number, but all I get are miscues and boos.

A young engineer with ambitious plans tries and fails to get support from his traditional industrialist father. Only when the industrialist's son is injured in an unsuccessful experiment does the father change his mind.

Drama set in the nineteenth century in Sorrento in southern Italy. It is an adaptation of the 1852 novel of the same title by Francesco Mastriani. A young woman named Beatrice loses her sight after witnessing the death of her mother. Unable to see Beatrice is unable to identify her mothers’ killer. The police arrest a man who they believe is the murderer. Did they get the right man or is the killer still lurking in the shadows? Years later a family friend introduces Beatrice to a renowned Doctor who specializes in restoring sight. Will Beatrice regain her sight and identify her mothers’ killer or will someone make sure that she never sees again?

Piccolo Hotel (aka Small Hotel) uses the titular establishment to weave together a vast tapestry of subplots, a la Grand Hotel. The guests include a domineering mother (Lola Braccini), her petulant daughter (Bianca Doria) and the daughter's gigolo boyfriend (Guido Notari). Also on hand is a worldly vamp (Laura Nucci) who also falls for the boyfriend, and the chronic-gambler son (Andrea Checchi) of the hotel's self-sacrificing landlady (Emma Grammatica). Though the film is set in Budapest, the characters are more Mediterranean than mittel-European. Piccolo Hotel was one of the entries in the Vienna Biennial Film Festival.

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A killer is on the loose, murdering people with an iron claw.

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In the center of Milan, Felicita Colombo successfully manages a delicatessen that has among its customers the best bourgeoisie of the city.

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The murderer who killed a Black Shirt in 1922 escaped across Italy’s borders, leaving his family and the victim’s family in poverty. The fascist’s son, whose mother also died, was taken in and raised among the Balilla youth. Twelve years after the crime, the murderer—who had found neither bread nor peace—returned to Italy clandestinely by jumping into the sea a short distance from the Italian coast. Just as he was about to drown, he was saved by his victim’s son and other sailors.

A sweeping, cinematic pseudo-documentary history of human flight, starting with the failed attempt of Icarus, and ending with the aviation triumphs of the fascist regime.

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When an innocent young woman finds herself abandoned by the proper young man whose child she's had, she is taken in by a troupe of traveling performers.

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A heated sporting rivalry divides Giorgio Roberti and Fausto Renzi, both capable marathon runners. After a defeat the latter contemplates abandoning competitive sports, but is convinced by Silvia Delotti, daughter of the sports organizer of the "Aurora", to return to his father's "stable". The rivalry thus also becomes sentimental between Giorgio, already in love with Silvia, and Fausto.

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A doctor performs an experiment on a dying man by placing him under hypnosis on his deathbed.

An American starlet inflames two Italian peasants who forget about their respective fiance's. One of them even thinks of marrying her and begins to plan for the engagement banquet. When the girl decides to live the countryside harmony reigns again.

A woman becomes convinced that her husband is an infamous wife-killer intent on adding her to his list of victims.

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Successful WWI pilot Luciano Serra has problems adjusting to an ordinary life in peace, so he leaves his family and becomes a pilot in America. In the 30s, his son in Italy wants also to become a pilot, and Luciano accepts an offer of a double dealing agent for a flight from Rio to Rome, but his plane crashes in the Atlantic. For the world Luciano Serra is missing, but he has entered the Italian army under a new name to fight in Ethiopia. The train in which his unit travels is attacked by Ethiopian soldiers, his son flying a reconasaince mission is shot down and wounded by the same attacking enemies. Will Luciano be able to fly the plane back, to get close air support for the outnumbered Italian troups?

A sympathetic bandit chief supports the cause of freedom in Naples against the Bourbon King Ferdinand.

A madman is so obsessed by the protruding eye of the old man with whom he lives that he plots to murder him.

Aboard the luxurious high-speed express “Freccia d’oro,” a jeweller carrying precious gems is targeted by thieves who take over the train, disabling alarms and barricading themselves in the baggage car. Meanwhile, a bridge ahead has collapsed, and the train is unaware due to the thieves’ isolation of the locomotive. Panic ensues among the passengers. Just as disaster looms, the young engineer sees a glowing cross in the fog, prompting him to stop the train in time. The cross is revealed to be a rosary from his mother, reflecting off the headlight. This divine sign saves everyone, and the thieves are captured.