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- 1947
- Lopert Pictures Corporation
- 1 h 31 m
- 1947
- Lopert Pictures Corporation
- 1 h 31 m
Summary Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
Directed By: Vittorio De Sica
- 1947
- Lopert Pictures Corporation
- 1 h 31 m
- 1947
- Lopert Pictures Corporation
- 1 h 31 m
Shoeshine
82
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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Summary Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
Directed By: Vittorio De Sica
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 7 Critic Reviews
82
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 7 Critic Reviews
82
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
De Sica has to be considered one of the great directors of children, and the film, which won the first Academy Award for best foreign film and has been championed by Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese, is as valuable for its location shooting as its storytelling. [03 Jul 2011, p.P22]
It has a sweetness and a simplicity that suggest greatness of feeling, and this is so rare in films that to cite a comparison one searches beyond the medium.
Shoeshine may strengthen a suspicion that the best movies in the world are being made, just now, in Italy.
By Staff (Not Credited) FULL REVIEW
De Sica, working with a host of screenwriters, builds a teeming story—involving broken friendships, families, institutions, dreams, and lives—in which elements of observation and research are concentrated into intensely emotional moments that heighten the film’s moral and mnemonic power.
Not a pretty picture to contemplate nor is it by any means a well-made picture. But "Shoe-Shine" mirrors the anguished soul of a starving, disorganized and demoralized nation with such uncompromising realism that the roughness of its composition is overshadowed by its driving, emotional force.
By Staff (Not Credited) FULL REVIEW
With the shoeshine boys of Rome’s streets as background, this film is a preachment on Italian juvenile delinquency. Producers used real shoeshine boys and the absence of experienced actors works out okay. Scenes in Rome’s jail emphasize the need for drastic reforms there.
By Staff (Not Credited) FULL REVIEW
Notwithstanding the veracity of the American-occupied urban locations he captures, De Sica doesn’t innovate or subvert expectations in the manner of the contemporaneous war trilogy of Roberto Rossellini, and his plotting with principal screenwriter Cesare Zavattini doesn’t rise above the level of a vivid potboiler with a mild bent for muckraking.
User Reviews
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Production Company
- Societa Cooperativa Alfa Cinematografica
Release Date Aug 26, 1947
Duration 1 h 31 m
Genres
Tagline Un milagro como no conoció el cine en los 50 años de su historia! [Spanish poster.]
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
National Board of Review, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
