Word: sica
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...Bicycle Thief. Italian Director Vittorio (Shoeshine) De Sica's tragic classic about a Roman worker and his small child buffeted by modern society (TIME...
...Bicycle Thief. Italian Director Vittorio (Shoeshine) De Sica's carefully made classic of a worker and his small child hopelessly scouring Rome for a stolen bicycle (TIME...
...Bicycle Thief (De Sica; Mayer-Burstyn), an Italian-made film by Vittorio De Sica (Shoeshine) arrives in the U.S. heavy with prizes and praise collected in Europe. Rene Clair has called it "the best film for 30 years." It is a fine, sentimental tragedy, filled with bitter social comment and presented in the realistic style which the modern Italian moviemakers have made their trademark...
Since he has often been classed with such cinematic originators as Griffith, Eisenstein and Chaplin, Director De Sica is a moviemaker to be taken seriously. Actually, some of his scenes do suggest Chaplin's mixture of airy charm and down-to-earth bluntness. But thus far, he seems to be merely a clever craftsman with a great facility for squirting clear drops of sentiment into every shadow, gesture and cobblestone. The Bicycle Thief pictures the seamy side of life with no more reality than the average Hollywood movie shows the shiny side...
...picture scores a clear victory as a depressing document on the Roman terrain, particularly the remains of Mussolini's passion for majestic expanses of concrete. And De Sica's directing of his child star-Staiola's meanderings and scramblings, his thousand & one childish mannerisms, from unbuttoning his pants to his perplexed concentration on the chattering face of an Austrian priest-is worth several admission prices...