Il ferroviere (The Railroad Man). 1956. Italy. Directed by Pietro Germi. Screenplay by Germi, Alfredo Giannetti, Luciano Vincenzoni. With Germi, Luisa Della Noce, Sylva Koscina. North American premiere. In Italian; English subtitles. 118 min.
A box-office success after a string of disappointments, Pietro Germi’s The Railroad Man deserves its place alongside Italian Neorealist classics like Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves. Based on a story by the relatively unknown Communist screenwriter Alfredo Giannetti (who would collaborate again with Germi on Divorce, Italian Style and The Facts of Murder), the film stars Germi himself as a railroad engineer who, blind to his own shortcomings, is driven to drink, scab, and abuse his family after a horrific train accident. Deeply sympathetic yet uncompromising, The Railroad Man is a tale of disloyalty, disillusionment, and alienation redeemed only by the grace of an innocent yet knowing young boy.
4K digital restoration by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Surf Film at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, with funding provided by Ministero della Cultura with an additional contribution of “A Season of Classic Films,” an initiative of ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes, supported by the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme; courtesy Surf Film.