Un americano in vacanza

I don't know how this movie has such a low score. It has a beautiful love story with interesting sub-plots and great actors, all backed by the beautiful scenery of Rome.

The tension never gets too high and there is good humor interspersed that keeps the audience engaged throughout.

The movie definitely has an American propaganda feel about it, but I don't think it detracts from the story and it's even interesting in light of the movie being made in 1946. The side characters add a lot of richness to the film. I definitely recommend this movie.

Valentina Cortese is the great experience of this film, something of a prelude to the great performances of Giulietta Masina, in her genuine sincerity and very Italian delicacy and shyness, and her sensitivity will pursue you as much as that American Italian Dick does her throughout the film. It is neither a comedy nor a tragedy but something in between, with very serious undertones: the film starts in a bombed out village, where the two Americans desperately search for a place to have a drink among the ruins, and come across her as she teaches small children in a bombed out school without a roof the elementaries of reading and writing. Dick has an Italian mother (from Venice) and speaks fluent Italian, which is a definite advantage, while his friend can't say a word in Italian without a vocabulary. Both Italian and American is spoken throughout the film, which adds to the consistent and total realism: this is Italy just after the war, all bombed out and rising from the ruins, the people gradually awakening to start living, working and building up their wrecked homes again, with American soldiers for their guests who are total aliens. Well, Dick is not, and he and Valentina Cortese actually find each other after much resistance on her part, they are constantly separated by circumstances, and there is a lot of hilarious comedy also, like a touch of Vittorio de Sica as well. Luigi Zampa was a major pioneer of the Italian Neo-Realism, and this could actually be his best film. All his other films are usually comedies. Add to this a gorgeous score by the early Nino Rota.

A post-WW2 Italian movie with fine actors, a decent script, and lots of stuff for the curious eye to observe regarding the geography and the era.

Basically, it's a clean, platonic love story that opens up like a slow rom-com with more attempts at humor than it will allow in the ending. Maybe a bit too long for the story, but that's ok.

The young Valentina Cortese is elegant and charming. There is even a moment of "meta" where the American soldier, taking her out from the party to the garden, talks about how there are such scenes in almost every American movie, and she responds accordingly after coming close to losing control.

Post-war Italian perception of the USA comes with some great trivia in the movie. Such as that statement from General Clarke which she teaches her students:

"We will not ask anything from Italy other than a little bit of land to bury our dead"

What I have difficulty wrapping my head around is how fast Italian cinema could react to the very new situation of Americans being there in the country, becoming a drive for certain aspects of social life, interacting with local women.

This movie itself is proof that screenplays were not passing from hand to hand for years in an effort to make them as mature as they can. Writers just observed what's going on, hit fast their typewriters, and not much time was spent between that creative phase and hands-on production.

That's why these movies look "imperfect" from today's understanding of cinema, whereas their foremost quality is indeed that freshness.