Rome 11:00

Roma ore 11
Directed by Giuseppe De Santis
Written by Cesare Zavattini
Basilio Franchina
Giuseppe De Santis
Rodolfo Sonego
Gianni Puccini
Starring Carla Del Poggio
Lucia Bosé
Raf Vallone
Music by Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography Otello Martelli
Edited by Gabriele Varriale
Release dates
  • 1952
Running time
 105 minutes
Country Italy
Language Italian

Rome 11 o'clock or Roma ore 11 is a 1952 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe De Santis and one of the best examples of Neorealist filmmaking. Augusto Genina made the film named Tre storie proibite, based on the same tragic accident at Savoia Street that Rome ore 11 is about.

Plot

The film is based on a real story, an accident that happened in Rome, when a staircase fell down because of the weight of hundreds of women waiting for a job interview as a secretary.

In response to a job ad in a newspaper, two hundred girls present themselves to an address in Via Savoia to get a job of typist in the office of an accountant. In an Italy exasperated by general unemployment, but even more by the impossibility for women to get a job, the girls that want to have the interview are from the most diverse young women: fallen nobles and prostitutes seeking to change their lives, wives with unemployed husbands, affluent daughters where the pension is not enough to survive.

Crowded on the stairways of the small building, they exchange impressions and made mention to their lives of misery and tricks for a living. Then, a furious fight for the priorities in the line unchain the girls, whose arrogance to switch ahead turns in tragedy: the staircase railing gives up, destroying one by one the steps, and plunging the women; some of them remain seriously injured, while one, Anna Maria Baraldi, dies.

Taken to hospital, the bitter discovery: to be treated, the hospital is demanding a payment of 2,300 Lire, daily. So, many of them are forced to rush home because unable to pay.

Cast

Awards

External links