Episode 1 – Sicily – was actually shot on the Amalfi coast: on landing, the Allied troops ask for information from the local population gathered in the Church of San Domenico in Maiori; Carmela volunteers to accompany them and meets a soldier on guard at the Torre Normanna in Maiori.
Episode 2 moves to Naples: from the busy harbour and crowded areas around the Maschio Angioino. Sciuscià is a shoe shine boy in piazza San Domenico Maggiore living hand to mouth: for example, by selling Joe a drunken American soldier for 3,000 lire, only to then drag him to piazza Cavour. The soldier giddily follows him and they end up in via Nuova Marina, devastated by bombing, which is profoundly unlike its present-day incarnation: in the distance the Church of Santa Croce e Purgatorio al Mercato rising over the piazza del Mercato is recognisable. Later, Joe recognises the kid in a truck from his jeep on corso Umberto I, and grabs him to get his stolen shoes back. He gives up on the idea after he sees how the kid lives and leaves walking along via Fedro.
The Cupola of St. Peters and the unmistakable hulk of Castel Sant’Angelo announce the episode in Rome. A celebratory crowd welcomes the liberating army in piazza Venezia. A soldier meets Francesca who he will not recognise six months later as the prostitute who tries to pick him up. He will leave definitively with other soldiers from beneath the Colosseum.
A glimpse of piazza de’ Pitti, takes us to Florence, where the Allies are liberating the city south of the Arno river. Harriet, an English nurse, decides to join Massimo in crossing the occupied city. The only way is through the Vasari Gallery in piazzale degli Uffizi where they walk after crossing Ponte Vecchio. Inside the city, piazza and Palazzo della Signoria are occupied by the Nazis. However, when they leave it, they are in Rome as identified by the portico with columns and pilasters of "Fiammetta’s House" near piazza Navona. They knock on the door of a building in piazza Fiammetta to ask for shelter. As they desperately escape, they run through the Boboli Gardens, around the Renaissance buildings in the centre of the city, the Cathedral and the Baptistery in a deserted piazza San Giovanni and pass over the roofs. A wounded man is taken to the wide-open clearing of via Curtatone. In via Solferino a partisan is killed.
In Appennino emiliano, Episode 5, three American military chaplains (Catholic, Protestant and Jewish) stay at the convent of Savignano di Romagna, whose interiors are those of the Franciscan convent of Maiori.
The last episode, Porto Tolle, opens with a dramatic shot of a partisan’s corpse being dragged away in the river, as Rossellini had seen so many in the Po during the war. In the Po Delta, partisans and American former prisoners live like outlaws, fighting the Nazis coming up the river. In the battle fought in the swamps of the Polesine, the Nazis punish violently partisans and civilians. Locations incuded Porto Tolle and the Sacca di Scardovari.
Episode 1 – Sicily – was actually shot on the Amalfi coast: on landing, the Allied troops ask for information from the local population gathered in the Church of San Domenico in Maiori; Carmela volunteers to accompany them and meets a soldier on guard at the Torre Normanna in Maiori.
Episode 2 moves to Naples: from the busy harbour and crowded areas around the Maschio Angioino. Sciuscià is a shoe shine boy in piazza San Domenico Maggiore living hand to mouth: for example, by selling Joe a drunken American soldier for 3,000 lire, only to then drag him to piazza Cavour. The soldier giddily follows him and they end up in via Nuova Marina, devastated by bombing, which is profoundly unlike its present-day incarnation: in the distance the Church of Santa Croce e Purgatorio al Mercato rising over the piazza del Mercato is recognisable. Later, Joe recognises the kid in a truck from his jeep on corso Umberto I, and grabs him to get his stolen shoes back. He gives up on the idea after he sees how the kid lives and leaves walking along via Fedro.
The Cupola of St. Peters and the unmistakable hulk of Castel Sant’Angelo announce the episode in Rome. A celebratory crowd welcomes the liberating army in piazza Venezia. A soldier meets Francesca who he will not recognise six months later as the prostitute who tries to pick him up. He will leave definitively with other soldiers from beneath the Colosseum.
A glimpse of piazza de’ Pitti, takes us to Florence, where the Allies are liberating the city south of the Arno river. Harriet, an English nurse, decides to join Massimo in crossing the occupied city. The only way is through the Vasari Gallery in piazzale degli Uffizi where they walk after crossing Ponte Vecchio. Inside the city, piazza and Palazzo della Signoria are occupied by the Nazis. However, when they leave it, they are in Rome as identified by the portico with columns and pilasters of "Fiammetta’s House" near piazza Navona. They knock on the door of a building in piazza Fiammetta to ask for shelter. As they desperately escape, they run through the Boboli Gardens, around the Renaissance buildings in the centre of the city, the Cathedral and the Baptistery in a deserted piazza San Giovanni and pass over the roofs. A wounded man is taken to the wide-open clearing of via Curtatone. In via Solferino a partisan is killed.
In Appennino emiliano, Episode 5, three American military chaplains (Catholic, Protestant and Jewish) stay at the convent of Savignano di Romagna, whose interiors are those of the Franciscan convent of Maiori.
The last episode, Porto Tolle, opens with a dramatic shot of a partisan’s corpse being dragged away in the river, as Rossellini had seen so many in the Po during the war. In the Po Delta, partisans and American former prisoners live like outlaws, fighting the Nazis coming up the river. In the battle fought in the swamps of the Polesine, the Nazis punish violently partisans and civilians. Locations incuded Porto Tolle and the Sacca di Scardovari.
OFI, FFP
A film in six episodes – Sicilia, Napoli, Roma, Firenze, Appennino Emiliano, Porto Tolle – that reproduces the advance of the Allies from Sicily to Northern Italy during WWII.
