starring Massimo Girotti
Amedeo Nazzari, Elisa Cegani, Vivi Gioi
Tommaso is a young Italian boxer with a college degree. He puts that on the back burner to go to the United States and make it as a boxer. He meets up with his own brother Amedeo, who’s gone into construction, in New York. But a crime gang accuses Amedeo of being a killer, and the case goes to court. Tommaso plays a splendid match in the ring and manages to beat the African-American champion, using the prize money to get his brother out on bail. In vain: Amedeo winds up getting shot anyway, and, on his deathbed, begs Tommaso to go back to Italy. The film was made at the Cinecittà studios in the middle of the Second World War, in late ’42 and early ’43, and was released in April 1943.
"This film was put together to be instructive and even a tad moralizing, courtesy of its grand Griffith-style finale and tightly edited fight sequence. After such a long dry run of films filled with sterile, descriptive scenes, we saw the audience leap to their feet, yelling and clapping their hands. The makers of this film wanted to make it a surrogate for American pictures."
(Antonio Pietrangeli in Bianco e Nero, June 1, 1943)
