I Vinti

I vinti
DVD cover
Directed by	Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by	Mario Gabrielli
Written by	Michelangelo Antonioni Giorgio Bassani Suso Cecchi d'Amico Diego Fabbri Roger Nimier (French) Turi Vasile
Starring	Franco Interlenghi Anna Maria Ferrero Eduardo Ciannelli
Music by	Giovanni Fusco
Cinematography	Enzo Serafin
Edited by	Eraldo Da Roma
Production company	Film Costellazione Produzione Société Générale de Cinématographie
Distributed by	Film Costellazione Produzione
Release dates	4 September 1953 (1953-09-04) (USA) 21 October 1953 (1953-10-21) (Italy) 2 January 1963 (1963-01-02) (France)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	French Italian English

I vinti (English: The Vanquished) is a 1953 drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Franco Interlenghi, Anna Maria Ferrero and Eduardo Ciannelli. The film is composed of three stories about youths who commit murders. In the French story set in Paris, a group of high school students kill one of their colleagues for his money. In the Italian story set in Rome, a university student is involved in smuggling cigarettes. In the English story set in London, a lazy poet finds the body of a woman and tries to sell his story to the press. The film was a project of Film Costellation to Suso Cecchi d'Amico, who proposed Antonioni as director. This film was screened out of competition at 1953 Venice Film Festival.

Cast

French story

• Jean-Pierre Mocky
• Etchika Choureau as Simone
• Henri Poirier
• Albert Michel as Le père de Georges

Italian story

• Franco Interlenghi as Claudio
• Anna-Maria Ferrero as Marina
• Eduardo Ciannelli as Claudio's father
• Evi Maltagliati as Claudio's mother

English story

• Patrick Barr as Ken Wharton
• Fay Compton as Mrs Pinkerton
• Peter Reynolds as Aubrey
• David Farrar

Production and release

The theatrical film was dubbed into Italian for all three episodes, although the Paris episode is spoken in French, and the London episode in English. The Italian DVD by Medusa Film offers the restored uncut trilingual version.

The Italian episode was modified for censorship reasons, but it was later included in the 1962 anthology film Il fiore e la violenza. The entire film was refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Censors in 1954, and has never been released in the UK. The French episode had trouble with French censorship, and was not released until 1963.

The English-language episode is loosely based on the murder of 48 year old Mrs Mabel Tattershaw by Herbert Leonard Mills, aged 19. Wanting to commit the "perfect murder," on 3 August 1951 Mills lured Tattershaw to Sherwood Vale, where he struck her about the head, and strangled her. He then returned home and waited for the body to be discovered. When this had not happened by 9 August he rang the News of the World, told them he had found the body of a strangled woman, and demanded payment for his story. Mills was quickly implicated, tried for the crime, and found guilty. He was executed on 11 December 1951. A report by the Nottingham Evening Post of Mills's arrest for the crime is shown on screen during the narrated introduction to the film, amongst others from across Europe reporting crimes by youths, including John Straffen.

Reception

I vinti, while seldom ranked with Antonioni's best efforts, is met with positive reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 100% approval among five critics.

External links

• I vinti at IMDb

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