Open City (Minerva; Mayer-Burstyn) was made in 1944-45 by Italians in Italian. The first major film to be produced in the new Italy, it tells a brutally frank story of the German occupation: the worries and dislocations of Roman family life, the work of anti-Fascist partisans, the horrors of Gestapo methods of torture.
Open City has far more force, considerably less finish, than the average serious American picture. A patriotic parish priest (Aldo Fabrizi) plays the major role, sheltering and aiding underground agents until he is betrayed by a local girl to the Nazis...
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