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''Alarm Bells'' () is a 1949 Italian
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by
Luigi Zampa Luigi Zampa (2 January 1905 – 16 August 1991) was an Italian film director. Biography Son of a worker, Zampa studied filmmaking from 1932 to 1937 at the Italian film school in Rome. He directed several Italian neorealism films in the 1940 ...
and starring
Gina Lollobrigida Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida (4 July 1927 – 16 January 2023) was an Italian actress, model, photojournalist, and sculptor. She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, a period in which she was an international ...
,
Yvonne Sanson Yvonne Sanson, born Fotini Sapountzakis (Greek: Φωτεινή ΣαπουντζάκηEduardo De Filippo Eduardo De Filippo OMRI (; 26 May 1900 – 31 October 1984), also known simply as ''Eduardo'', was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan language, Neapolitan works ''Filumena Marturano'' and ...
.
Location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. When filmmaking professionals refer to shooting "on location", they are ...
took place on
Ischia Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Although inhabited since the Bronze Age, as a Ancient G ...
in the
Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy (Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region). It opens to the west into the Mediterranean ...
. The film's sets were designed by the
art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...
Piero Gherardi. A separate English-language version '' Children of Chance'' was produced. It was directed by Zampa but otherwise featured a different British cast of actors. It took around 113 million
lira Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current Turkish lira, currency of Turkey and also the local name of the Lebanese pound, currencies of Lebanon and of Syrian pound, Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, ...
at the box office.


Plot

Agostina has been working as a prostitute during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, has been sending the money she has saved back to her hometown priest for safekeeping. After the war she returns to the island with her friend Australia, planning to open a clothing shop. However, she discovers that the Priest had been dead a year and his successor believing that the money was a donation has spent it all on an orphanage for those who have lost their parents in the war.


Cast

*
Gina Lollobrigida Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida (4 July 1927 – 16 January 2023) was an Italian actress, model, photojournalist, and sculptor. She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, a period in which she was an international ...
as Agostina *
Yvonne Sanson Yvonne Sanson, born Fotini Sapountzakis (Greek: Φωτεινή ΣαπουντζάκηEduardo De Filippo Eduardo De Filippo OMRI (; 26 May 1900 – 31 October 1984), also known simply as ''Eduardo'', was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan language, Neapolitan works ''Filumena Marturano'' and ...
as Don Andrea *
Carlo Giustini Carlo Giustini (4 May 1916 – 26 October 2005), sometimes credited as Carlo Justini, was an Italian actor. Life and career Born in Viterbo, the son of a railway employee, Giustini debuted at twenty years old in ''The Materassi Sisters'', afte ...
as Marco *
Carlo Romano Carlo Romano (8 May 1908 – 16 October 1975) was an Italian actor, voice actor and screenwriter. Biography Born in Livorno, Romano was the son of actress Dina Romano and the younger brother of actor Felice Romano. Romano started his ac ...
as Gendarme *
Clelia Matania Clelia Matania (28 March 1918 – 14 October 1981) was an Italian film and voice actress. Life and career Born in London, the daughter of the Capri-born naturalized Briton painter Fortunino Matania (best known as Saturnino), Matania attended ...
as Bianca *
Agostino Salvietti Agostino Salvietti (28 August 1882 - 2 December 1967) was an Italian actor. He appeared in more than forty films from 1924 to 1964. Filmography References External links * 1882 births 1967 deaths Italian male film actors {{It ...
as Mayor *
Ernesto Almirante Ernesto Almirante (24 September 1877 – 13 December 1964) was an Italian film and stage actor. Life and career Born in Mistretta into a family of actors, Almirante worked several years on stage along his father Nunzio. He was also active as ...
as Landowner * as Butcher * Salvatore Arcidiacono as The Pharmacist *
Ada Colangeli Ada Colangeli (5 March 1913 – 29 February 1992) was an Italian character actress. Life and career Born on 5 March 1913 in Rome, Colangeli began acting in the early 1940s, and she was mainly cast in roles of women from a low social class. Acti ...
as Francesca *
Carlo Pisacane Carlo Pisacane, Duke of San Giovanni (1818–1857) was an Italian patriot and one of the first Italian socialist thinkers. He was an early advocate of propaganda by deed, arguing that violence was necessary not only to draw attention to, or gen ...
as Filippo the altar boy * Francesco Santoro as Franco * Vittoria Febbi as Connie * Pasquale Misiano as Chauffeur


Production

Carlo Romano, Yvonne Sanson, Gina Lollobrigida and Agostino Salvietti, in a scene from the film It should also be noted that a 27-year-old Mauro Bolognini, among others, worked in the crew as assistant director. The film, shot in Ischia, was made in a double version, Italian and English, the latter entitled "O.K. Agostina," The English version was scripted by Michael Medwin and starred Patricia Medina, as Agostina, Ivonne Mitchell, as Australia, while Manning Whiley played Don Andrea.Maurizio Ponzi: ''«Gina Lollobrigida»'' Gremese Edit. Roma, 1982 The same scenes were played by the Italian actors and then by the English actors. The only actress who played in both versions was the bilingual Clelia Matania. The scriptwriter Piero Tellini wrote the film inspired by a news story he read in a newspaper. The story turned out to be false when the journalist sued Tellini for plagiarism: in fact, he claimed the rights since he himself had invented the news. The collaboration between Luigi Zampa and Gina Lollobrigida would result in two more films, including Romana in 1954. Sanson was almost making her debut (she had worked with Lattuada in Il delitto di Giovanni Episcopo in 1947). The two actresses became friends, so much so that Sanson was Lollobrigida's best main at her wedding when she married Mirko Skofic. In this film, Sanson plays a role in which she mistreats one of the orphans: with irony still Maurizio Ponzi observes that it is "a gesture that the actress will bitterly discount in ten years and more of cinema managed by Raffaello Matarazzo in which the children will be her richest source of anguish and tears."


See also

* '' Children of Chance'' (1949)


References


Bibliography

* Chiti, Roberto & Poppi, Roberto. ''Dizionario del cinema italiano: Dal 1945 al 1959''. Gremese Editore, 1991.


External links

* 1949 films 1949 drama films 1940s multilingual films Italian drama films Italian multilingual films 1940s Italian-language films Italian black-and-white films Films directed by Luigi Zampa Films produced by Carlo Ponti Films scored by Nino Rota Lux Film films 1940s Italian films Italian-language drama films {{1940s-drama-film-stub