Two Cents Worth of Hope

Antonio comes home from military service to a town near Naples, under Vesuvius. There is no work. His mother and sisters look to him and he has to look after them. He is in love with Carmela, whose father makes fireworks and wants exactly one thing from a son-in-law: steady work. Antonio tries everything, sexton at the church, selling his blood, hawking goods in the street. Each time something happens and the job is gone. Carmela, for her part, would rather shout than wait. Renato Castellani directs; ninety-three minutes. Most of the cast are not professionals but people from the town. It shared the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1952 with Orson Welles's Othello. It counts as the branch of neorealism that opened towards comedy.