Federico Fellini-I Vitelloni (1953)

Five young men linger in a postadolescent limbo, dreaming of adventure and escape from their small seacoast town. They while away their time spending the lira doled out by their indulgent families on drink, women, and nights at the local pool hall. Federico Fellini’s second solo directorial effort (originally released in the U.S. as The Young and the Passionate) is a semiautobiographical masterpiece of sharply drawn character sketches: Skirt chaser Fausto, forced to marry a girl he has impregnated; Alberto, the perpetual child; Leopoldo, a writer thirsting for fame; and Moraldo, the only member of the group troubled by a moral conscience. An international success and recipient of an Academy Award® nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I Vitelloni compassionately details a year in the life of a group of small-town layabouts struggling to find meaning in their lives. criterion.com




A sensitive character study of five young men trapped in a small town on the Adriatic. Their discontentment and restlessness lead them into a variety of activities, not all of them admirable. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0046521/plotsummary)




In a small seaside town in Italy, Moraldo Rubini (Franco Interlenghi), Alberto (Alberto Sordi), Fausto Moretti (Franco Fabrizi), Leopoldo Vannucci (Leopoldo Trieste) and Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini) form a group of idle friends that spend their time together doing nothing but drinking, flirting and going to parties. When Fausto's girlfriend Sandra Rubini (Eleonora Ruffo) gets pregnant, he is pressed by his own father to marry her. However, the irresponsible Fausto remains unfaithful to Sandra, cheating her with many women and almost leading his family to a tragedy. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0046521/plotsummary)




Federico Fellini's breakthrough film, the 1953 I Vitelloni, is one of the cinema's seminal stories about slacker males, and a highly entertaining one at that. Following the unfortunate failure of his comedy The White Sheik, Fellini prepared to shoot La Strada (he would release that early masterpiece in 1954), but decided at the last minute to make an autobiographical feature about mischievous, drifting, 30-ish losers in a small, seaside town. I Vitelloni clicked with international audiences and remains an obvious influence on such later classics as Breaking Away and Diner. But there's nothing like Fellini's almost self-mocking fusion of gritty neo-realism with the audacious, illusionary style he would later be entirely linked. The ensemble comedy follows the ever-diminishing fortunes of five young men who can't define, let alone jump-start, their dreams, particularly the caddish Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), who thinks nothing of molesting the wife of his father-in-law's best friend. (–Tom Keogh - Editorial Reviews - Amazon.com)




Trapped in a timeless sphere without pressure of accomplishment, maternal love nurses five men way past their adolescence in a small tourist town by the Adriatic Sea in post-war Italy. These five men drift around dreaming of an escape from the town, but a lack of motivation keeps them prisoners at the seaside location. The mutual motivations for the five men that keeps them adrift are women, wine, and the stories they tell each other. However, each character has his own motivating factor that drives him forward in daily life. (Amazon.com)




I Vitelloni is the second film that Fellini directed by himself which he also co-wrote with his talented brother, Riccardo Fellini. Riccardo and Federico based the script on semi-autographical accounts from their home town and a life which they both were very much inclined to depict. Unlike many of Fellini's later films I Vitelloni displays some of the Italian neo-realistic cinematic qualities that were common in the period when the film was shot. The realism brings an honest and warm atmosphere to the film which emphasizes the true nature of the characters. Realism in the script allows the audience is to experience an examination of the different characters in the film. This character study brings the audience candid emotions and a brilliant cinematic experience that warms the heart as there are hopes and dreams for us all. (Amazon.com)