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| Brunella Bovo and Francesco Golisano in Miracle in Milan |
Cast: Emma Gramatica, Francesco Golisano, Brunella Bovo, Paolo Stoppa, Guglielmo Bernabò, Anna Carena, Alba Arnova, Flora Cambi, Virgilio Riento, Arturo Bragaglia, Erminio Spala. Screenplay: Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Mario Chiarai, Adolfo Franci, based on a book by Zavattini. Cinematography: G.R. Aldo. Production design: Guido Fiorini. Film editing: Eraldo Da Roma. Music: Alessandro Cicognini.
The great neorealist Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan begins with an old woman finding a baby in a cabbage patch and ends with people on broomsticks taking flight over the Milan cathedral. It's a long way from the film that preceded it in his directing career, Bicycle Thieves (1948). What unites the two films is their focus on the struggling and dispossessed of Italy in the years after World War II. The foundling is Totò (Francesco Golisano), who emerges with an indomitably sunny disposition from the orphanage to which he was sent after the death of the old woman (Emma Gramatica). Totò greets strangers on the street with "good morning," sometimes to their annoyance, and manages to make friends with a man who filches the handbag containing his worldly possessions. He winds up sharing a trash-can hovel with the man in a homeless encampment, which somehow he transforms into a community. And from then on it's all fantasy, as the shantytown is threatened by greedy developers and rescued by Totò with the aid of the angelic visitation of the old woman who gives him a wish-granting magic dove. As a satire, the film's portrayal of capitalist greed is tempered by the fact that the poor people display a similar greed when the dove's powers grant their wishes, which also leaves De Sica with a bit of a problem when it comes to ending his film. His only resort is a literal flight of fantasy. Miracle in Milan is a much-loved movie that has been compared to the films of Charles Chaplin, though it never achieves either the comic highs or the maudlin lows of Chaplin's movies. The best way to approach it is with a childlike disposition, taking it for the fairy tale that it is.
