The laurel-heaped Italian movie, The Bicycle Thief (TIME, Dec. 12), tells a simple, heartbreaking story that might have come right off the streets of postwar Rome. An unemployed workman gets a job which requires a bicycle. He pawns the family bedsheets to get his out of hock, loses it to a thief, and fails in a forlorn chase to get it back. For the central role, Director Vittorio (Shoeshine) De Sica hired a real workman: gaunt, sad-eyed Lamberto Maggiorani, 39, whose performance won international praise.
Last week, while. Manhattan moviegoers waited in line to...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
