Four Steps in the Clouds

Four Steps in the Clouds
Directed by Alessandro Blasetti
Produced by Giuseppe Amato
Written by Giuseppe Amato
Alessandro Blasetti
Aldo De Benedetti
Piero Tellini
Cesare Zavattini
Starring Gino Cervi
Adriana Benetti
Vittorio De Sica
Music by Alessandro Cicognini
Cinematography Václav Vích
Release dates
 23 December 1942 (Italy)
20 November 1948 (U.S.)
Running time
 95 min.
Language Italian

Quattro passi fra le nuvole (U.S. title: Four Steps in the Clouds) is a 1942 Italian drama film directed by Alessandro Blasetti. Aesthetically, it is close to Italian neorealism. The film's sets were designed by Virgilio Marchi.

It was nominated for BAFTA as Best Film from any Source.

Plot

The story deals with a married agent for a candy manufacturer, played by Gino Cervi. He leads a stable, if somewhat boring, family life in a large unnamed city in the North of Italy.

While travelling on a South bound train on company business, he sees a young woman about to be put off by the conductor. She has no ticket and cannot afford to buy one. The agent helps her stay on the train, and she asks if he could do one more favour for her. She has just been abandoned by her boyfriend upon becoming pregnant and she is now on her way back to the family farm. She has nowhere else to go but is certain that her father will throw her out as soon as he realizes that she is unmarried.

She is terrified and begs the agent to come home with her and pass himself off as her husband. The deception need only last a couple of days, after which he can go back to his normal life and job and she can claim to have been abandoned. The agent decides that taking a couple of days off work is a small price to pay for saving the girl's honour for the rest of her life and gets off the train with her.

Arriving on the farm, the agent finds it hard to maintain the lie, but in an impassioned speech, convinces the girl's father to let her stay at home. After which, he goes back to his wife and family without mentioning the incident.

Cast

Remakes

The film was remade several times, as Sous le ciel de Provence in 1956, as A Walk in the Clouds in 1995, as Mungarina Minchu in 1997 and as Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke in 2000.

External links