1949 Winner, The Bicycle Thief

 The Bicycle Thief

Director:  Vittorio de Sica

Distributed by:  Joseph Burstyn & Arthur Mayer

Released:  December 1949 (in U.S.)

Country:  Italy

One time in seventh grade, finished with basketball practice, I walked out of the gym to the bike rack and found that my Huffy ten-speed had been swiped.  The question I was asked repeatedly, by the cops and by my parents, was whether I had locked the bike.  “Of course!” I insisted, also repeatedly, though I was 99% certain that I hadn’t.  Had anyone pursued the line of questioning, they would have wondered why the bicycle thief had cut the chain, then stole the ruined lock along with the bike. Maybe everyone felt sorry enough for me to just let it go.  In any case, I would have to walk to practice for a while, but life went on, bicycle-less.  The police put the case on ice, and it remains unsolved to this very day.

Father and son during happy times

For Antonio Ricci, the loss of his mode of transportation would have much more dire consequences in 1950’s Best Foreign Film, The Bicycle Thief.  In post-war Italy, the unemployed men wait around for work, hoping to hear their name called by a foreman of some kind, a scene not unlike one that might be found in On the Waterfront or Season Two of The Wire.  Antonio hears his name and rushes to the front of the crowd—the man doling out the job says the gig is for putting up posters all over town.  The one thing you need, though, is a bicycle.  Antonio is in-between bikes at the present, but he can walk.  No bike, no job, barks the foreman. Like I said, Antonio retorts, my bike is in the shop so I’ll get it now.

Really, though, Antonio had hocked his bike to a pawn shop to feed his family.  What to do?  His wife comes up with an idea—we don’t need sheets to sleep on, and we have nice ones.  So they go down and sell the sheets in order to get the bike back.  “Our luck is changing, you’ll see,” assures Antonio.  One doesn’t get the impression that will be the case.

Hey, that's my bike!

So Antonio gets his bike and rides out to do his job.  As he puts up his first poster, a crook comes out of nowhere and rides away with his only mode of transportation and income.  Antonio fails to chase him down, and spends the rest of the movie trying to find the thief and get his bike back. 

Antonio takes his young son Bruno with him, and the two of them do their best so that Antonio can keep his job.  They have a few leads, and make some unfounded accusations, but nothing leads to the reunion with his bike.  In one heartbreaking scene, Antonio takes his frustrations out on Bruno, who seems to idolize his pop.  Antonio, as careless with his son as he was with the bike, will soon discover that the way he reacts to the theft, including how he treats his son, is what he should be worried about more than the theft itself.

Excuse me, sir, did you see my lost bicycle?

The Bicycle Thief is a very simple movie, with no plot twists or surprises.  It is about Man’s inhumanity to Man in times of crisis, but I think it is even more about forgiveness for that inhumanity.  De Sica used non-actors to play out the story, a staple of neorealism, but I don’t think professionals could have elicited more sympathy than Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio and Enzo Staiola as Bruno do.  There are multiple lessons to be learned: one, be careful who you accuse of wrongdoing; two, don’t let misfortune affect how you treat others; and three, spring for the $15 and invest in a decent bicycle lock—and then, use it!

The Title: Ladri di biciclette.  The Italian title is actually, “Bicycle Thieves,” which I think is the better title, since after the first theft, which is of Antonio’s bike by one goombah, you are left to wonder if there will be more larceny ahead.

The culture:  There are great films about the aftermath of war, including 1939’s Gone with the Wind; Carol Reed’s The Third Man (also from 1949), which shows a broken Vienna; and Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear, about the worry about another Big One being dropped on Japan.  But none is surpassed by The Bicycle Thief in terms of eliciting pathos for the characters and hoping for the best for them.

Agenda danger:  This film has been analyzed and championed by Marxists, capitalists, and the Vatican, with each finding content that supports their views.  What I took away from the movie is how Antonio is essentially a good man, prone to descending into despair, self-pity, and ruthlessness, but also needing to be graced with forgiveness for his own transgressions.    

Tequila!

Best Picture that year:  All The Kings’ Men

Rating:  A classic that should be seen by anyone who likes films.  But if you can’t sit through a foreign film, check out 1985’s Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which is (very) loosely based on The Bicycle Thief.  There’s not as much Italian neo-realism in that film, but on the other hand, it does feature Pee Wee Herman dancing to Tequila.

1947 Winner, Shoeshine

Shoeshine

Director:  Vittorio De Sica

Distributed by:  Lopert Pictures

Released:  April 1946

Country:  Italy

In 1956, Federico Fellini won the first competitive Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for LaStrada, and it made him internationally famous.  He is the most widely known director from the country, Italy, that has won the most Best Foreign Film statues.  But before the Academy started the competitive award, it handed out eight Honorary Awards to films made in a language other than English in order to promote more of a relationship between American and International film.  The very first one of these special awards was given to Shoeshine, a neorealist film by Italian director and actor Vittorio De Sica.  De Sica may not be as known to Americans as Fellini is, but Shoeshine is the first of four Oscar winners De Sica would win during his long career.  That's as many as Fellini won.

Pasquale and Giuseppe bargain with the fortune teller

Shoeshine is a film about two young Italian chums, Giuseppe and Pasquale, who have a common goal: to own their own horse.  To earn money to achieve this, they shine the shoes of passers-by on the streets of post-war Rome.  They both know that they could shine a thousand pairs apiece and still not have enough to buy and board the horse they want, so when the opportunity comes to make some real dough, they jump on it.  Giuseppe’s older brother is in with some crooks who ask the boys to sell some expensive (and presumably stolen) blankets to a nearby fortune teller.  The boys are told that the higher they negotiate the price, the more they will get.  But during the negotiations, the police swoop in and accuse the boys of selling stolen goods, taking them away.  Only the police look a heck of a lot like the criminals who gave them the blankets to sell in the first place.  The fake cops take the boys out of the apartment and tell them to hit the bricks, allowing them to keep whatever the woman gave them for the blankets.  They are so happy to have enough to buy their horse that they don’t even consider what Giuseppe’s brother and his friends really had in mind—to rob the fortune teller blind.

No more shines for these two.

So Giuseppe and Pasquale are riding along on their new horse like war heroes through the streets of Rome when some real police and the fortune teller stop them.  She insists these are the boys that set up the robbery of her place, and not being stool pigeons, they keep their mouths shut.  Giuseppe, the younger and the more plucky of the two, is adamant that they not rat out his brother.  The boys are put in juvenile detention while they await their fate, split up and put into cells with four other kids each.  They will have to make it without each other for a while, and make new friends and avoid new enemies.  You get the feeling it won’t end well.

Shoeshine is a story about loyalty and what the definition of that word means.  As a prime example of Italian neorealism, like De Sica’s masterpiece of two years later, The Bicycle Thief, the characters are played by non-actors, making it seem all the more true-to-life.  It’s hard not to hope for the best for these boys, yet there is always a sinking feeling that it won’t work out.  It’s like being a Cleveland sports fan.

"Hey Tommy, now go home and get your !@#$% shinebox!"

The Title: Sciuscià.  The job of a shoeshine boy was important in post-war Italy, what with all the poverty.  Believe it or not, there are a number of famous folks who started out as shoeshine boys, such as Malcolm X, Sammy Sosa, and James Brown.  Most notably, Tommy DeVito in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas was a shoeshine boy when he was a kid, as Billy Batts, mobster fresh out of prison, reminds him repeatedly.  Batts doesn’t make too many more memories after that.

The culture:  Poverty in post-war Europe led to desperation in some cases, with crime rising as the best way to feed your family.  Certainly the shoeshine boys mixed up in the rip-off of the fortune teller looked the other way so they could forget about their miserable lives for a little and live the dream of having their own horse. 

Agenda danger:  The movie gives a hard look at how to deal with kids who aren’t quite as bad as the

The Bowery Boys, a.k.a, the Dead End Kids

crimes they commit.  Giuseppe and Pasquale both are good kids at heart, but once they get thrown into a prison of kids that look like the Bowery Boys, they have to adapt to survive.  The film pulls no punches in showing how bleak and soul-sucking such an atmosphere can be for kids who one would hope still have a chance to turn things around.

Best Picture that year:  Gentleman’s Agreement

Rating:  The Bicycle Thief is rightly and widely praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but De Sica made three other films that won Best Foreign Film (including Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), and Shoeshine should not be overlooked as one of Italy’s great films.  Like De Sica is somewhat overlooked in comparison to Fellini, Shoeshine is overshadowed by the greatness that is The Bicycle Thief.  And that is indeed a real crime.