A Neorealist Among the Clowns

Vittorio De Sica, best known for his social dramas, directed one of the great '60s comedies

- Uday Bhatia

Vittorio De Sica walks on to the set, a vast expanse of sand. Handsome, hair perfect, dressed in a suit, he graciously acknowledges the crew clapping, and says, "Please, save the applause for when I'm finished." He sets up the shot: Moses leading the slaves out of Egypt. As a crane lifts his chair up, he says through the megaphone, "I need more sand in the desert," an instruction his assistant dutifully repeats.

This is the kind of joke you'd expect in a film written by Neil Simon and starring Peter Sellers. But what might surprise some is that After the Fox is directed by De Sica himself. In the 1940s, he was one of the central figures of the neorealist movement in Italian cinema, which prioritised location shooting, non-professional actors and social themes. His unadorned, emotional films, which included Shoeshine (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952), made him one of the most famous directors in the world.

How did De Sica end up making a silly slapstick caper? Well, the star asked for him. Simon, already a successful New York playwright, found his maiden screenplay about a fake director in Italy optioned by British actor Peter Sellers, who wanted to work with De Sica. But it's also true that De Sica, though best known for his neorealist films, was a wide-ranging director with a particular fondness for comedies. He came aboard the project with Cesare Zavattini, writer of Rossellini's Rome, Open City and many of De Sica's own 1940s and '50s classics.