DE SICA'S 'IL BOOM' - FIRST U.S SCREENING AT FILM FORUM NY
The 1963 Vittorio De Sica classic finally comes to the U.S with a new restoration.
New York's long standing repertory institution Film Forum presents an unseen classic by Vittorio De Sica. IL BOOM (1963), starring Alberto Sordi, has never been seen before in the U.S and will be presented as part of an excluisve engagement with a new DCP Restoration.THE UNSEEN FILM BY VITTORIO DE SICA
Amidst Italy’s “economic miracle” (“il boom”) of the early 1960s, everybody’s dancing to Chubby Checker’s “The Twist”… and getting filthy rich – everyone except archetypal Everyman loser Alberto Sordi (the great star of Mafioso, The White Sheik, I Vitelloni, etc., etc.), who’s in hock to his eyeballs. And everyone in Rome seems to know it, except his beloved status-proud wife Gianna Maria Canale. But then rich, rich matron Elena Nicolai (long-time La Scala mezzo stalwart tour-de-forcing in her first movie role) offers him a way out: enough lire to get out of debt – and to re-establish himself – in exchange for … No, not that. Biting satire made even blacker by Piero Piccioni’s persistently perky score, and scripted by De Sica’s longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini, (Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D., Gold of Naples, etc.). Never released in the United States, and screened here only a handful of times in fifty-four years, this is its first long-run New York City engagement, with brand new English subtitles by Michael F. Moore and Bruce Goldstein.
Session times:
Daily (except Sunday & Monday) at 12:30pm, 2:20pm, 4:10pm, 6:00pm, 7:50pm & 9:40pm
Sunday at 3:45pm, 5:35pm, 7:25pm & 9:15pm
Monday at 12:30pm, 2:20pm, 4:10pm, 8:20pm & 10:10pm
Through Tuesday, June 27th
Program notes by Film Forum.