La Sfida [The Challenge] **** (1958, Rosanna Schiaffino, José Suárez, Nino Vingelli) – Classic Movie Review 11,075

World cinema director Francesco Rosi’s highly promising first feature is the realist 1958 Italian black and white crime film La Sfida [The Challenge], a real-life mobster story set in Naples.

The realist 1958 Italian black and white crime film La Sfida [The Challenge] is the highly promising good first feature from the major world cinema director Francesco Rosi. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 6 September 1958 and won the Jury Prize.

The film is set in Naples and stars José Suárez as a gang leader called Vito Polara who challenges a local Camorra boss for supremacy. It is loosely based on the real-life story of Camorra boss Pasquale Simonetti, known as Pasquale ‘e Nola, and his former beauty queen wife Pupetta Maresca, a character played as Assunta in the film by Rosanna Schiaffino.

Francesco Rosi was born on November 15, 1922 in Naples died on January 10, 2015 in Rome, aged 92. He was best known for Lucky Luciano (1973), The Mattei Affair (1972), Three Brothers [Tre fratelli], Illustrious Corpses (1976), La sfida (1958), Carmen (1984), Hands Over the City [Le mani sulla città] (1963) and Salvatore Giuliano (1962). He won the 1983 BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Christ Stopped at Eboli [Cristo si è fermato a Eboli] (1979).

The films of  Francesco Rosi: La sfida (1958), The Magliari (1959), Salvatore Giuliano (1962), Hands Over the City [Le mani sulla città] (1963), The Moment of Truth (1965), More Than a Miracle (1967), Many Wars Ago (1970), The Mattei Affair (1972), Lucky Luciano (1973), Illustrious Corpses (1976), Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979), Three Brothers [Tre fratelli] (1981), Carmen (1984), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1987), The Palermo Connection (1990) and The Truce (1997).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,075

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com