Italiano
Franco Interlenghi, born in Rome in 1931, has spent a lifetime performing in the squares and streets of the Italian capital, starting from his debut when he was just 14 years old in De Sica’s Shoeshine (Sciuscià, released in 1946), to Michele Placido’s Crime novel (Romanzo criminale, 2005).
“Ostia in the 50’s was exactly the way Luciano Emmer depicts it in Sunday in August (Una domenica d’agosto, 1950). The movie almost seems a documentary of those days. Most of the actors were not professionals at all, simply ordinary people, like those who actually went to Ostia every Sunday to go to the beach. Entire families in station wagons or on bikes or on the train, carrying their lunch: spaghetti, omelettes or breaded meat steaks. They (the actors) were real.
“In the movie, we leave Rome on a Sunday in August, on the train that leaves from Ostiense Square. It was always completely packed, you had to push people aside in order to get a place to stand. Then you got to Ostia and of course the beach was also outrageously crowded.
“Ostia hasn’t changed that much, in my opinion. Maybe there aren’t so many beaches where you don’t pay to get in today. There was this pine forest where the wealthy people used to go. In the movie, I go there to pretend to be rich and then maybe meet a rich girl. But then one I meet is also pretending. We are both poor, very poor. We come from the same neighbourhood in Rome.
“One thing you won’t see anymore is the Rome in August of those years. In the movie you can see the traffic cop, played by Mastroianni, and there’s absolutely no one in the streets. Rome is completely empty. Today Rome is full of people and cars even in August! In the 50’s that’s what it was like, August arrived and everyone left town.
“The first two films shot in Rome after World War II are Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta, 1945) and Shoeshine (Sciuscià, 1946), two undisputed masterpieces. Those were hard times. I remember when we were shooting Shoeshine at Via Veneto. It was only three months after the war had ended in Germany. The American MP, Military Police, was still in Rome. And once they even arrested us while shooting Shoeshine. We were setting up some scenes there at Via Veneto and then these guys from the MP came over to us. We had the cameras and all the stuff. De Sica was saying: ‘We’re just shooting a movie’. But they wouldn’t listen, no shooting could be done. We were placed under arrest and brought to the police station. After a little while, when everything was sorted out, they let us go away. The scene of the arrest remained in the movie, what’s in the film is a real arrest. And since no shooting could be done in Via Veneto, the film was completed at the Scalera studios, at Piazza Zama, where they had to build a piece of Via Veneto.”
“The first two films shot in Rome after World War II are Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta, 1945) and Shoeshine (Sciuscià, 1946), two undisputed masterpieces. Those were hard times. I remember when we were shooting Shoeshine at Via Veneto. It was only three months after the war had ended in Germany. The American MP, Military Police, was still in Rome. And once they even arrested us while shooting Shoeshine. We were setting up some scenes there at Via Veneto and then these guys from the MP came over to us. We had the cameras and all the stuff. De Sica was saying: ‘We’re just shooting a movie’. But they wouldn’t listen, no shooting could be done. We were placed under arrest and brought to the police station. After a little while, when everything was sorted out, they let us go away. The scene of the arrest remained in the movie, what’s in the film is a real arrest. And since no shooting could be done in Via Veneto, the film was completed at the Scalera studios, at Piazza Zama, where they had to build a piece of Via Veneto.”
 
