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L'Oro di Napoli
L'Oro di Napoli
	Poster
Directed by	Vittorio De Sica
Written by	Giuseppe Marotta (novel); Vittorio De Sica; Cesare Zavattini
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis; Marcello Girosi; Carlo Ponti
Starring	Silvana Mangano; Sophia Loren; Paolo Stoppa; Totò
Cinematography	Carlo Montuori
Edited by	Eraldo Da Roma
Music by	Alessandro Cicognini
Production; company	Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica
Distributed by	Paramount Films
Release dates	23 December 1954 (Italy); 11 February 1957 (USA);
Running time	131 minutes (Italy); 107 minutes (USA)
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Box office	$72,000 (US rental)

The Gold of Naples (Italian: L'oro di Napoli [ˈlɔːro di ˈnaːpoli]) is a 1954 Italian anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.^[2] In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."^[3]

Plot

The film is a tribute to Naples, where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of 6 Neapolitan episodes: a clown exploited by a hoodlum; an unfaithful pizza seller (Loren) losing her wedding ring; the funeral of a child; the impoverished inveterate gambler Count Prospero B. being reduced to force his doorman's preteen kid to play cards with him (and losing regularly); the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa, a prostitute; the exploits of "professor" Ersilio Miccio, a "wisdom seller" who "solves problems".

Cast

"Il guappo" ("The Racketeer")

Totò – Don Saverio Petrillo
Lianella Carell – Carolina, Saverio's wife
Pasquale Cennamo – Don Carmine Savarone, the squatter
Agostino Salvietti – Gennaro Esposito, the graveyard mourner

"Pizze a credito" ("Pizza on Credit")

Sophia Loren – Sofia
Paolo Stoppa – Don Peppino, the widower
Giacomo Furia – Rosario, Sofia's husband
Alberto Farnese – Alfredo, Sofia's lover
Tecla Scarano – Don Peppino's friend

"Funeralino"

Teresa De Vita – The mother

"I giocatori" ("The Gambler")

Vittorio De Sica – Count Prospero B.
Pierino Bilancioni – Gennarino, the young gambler
Lars Borgström – Federico, the doorkeeper
Mario Passante – Giovanni, the butler
Irene Montaldo – Countess B.

"Teresa" ("Theresa")

Silvana Mangano – Teresa
Erno Crisa – Don Nicola
Ubaldo Maestri – Don Ubaldo

"Il professore"

Eduardo De Filippo – Don Ersilio Miccio
Tina Pica – The elderly lady
Nino Imparato – Gennaro
Gianni Crosio – Alfonso Maria di Sant'Agata dei Fornai

Release

The original Italian release comprises six segments: "Il guappo", "Pizze a credito", "Funeralino", "I giocatori", "Teresa", and "Il professore". The US version omits the third and the sixth, leaving the following: "The Racketeer", "Pizza on Credit", "The Gambler", and "Theresa".^[4]

Paramount did not take up its option to release the film in the United States and it wasn't until February 1957 that the film was finally distributed there, being shown at the Paris Theater in New York for 18 weeks, earning the distributor, Distributors Corporation of America, $72,000.^[1] The film was voted one of the Ten Best Foreign Language Films of 1957 by The New York Times.^[4]