Il Compagno americano
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Hugh O'conor
Nancy Brilli
Tosca D'aquino
Giulio Base
Augusto Zucchi
Franco Diogene
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Paris, 1940: During a meeting of the Communist Party, a clumsy Mr. Hogan is given order to go to Italy to help a Russian comrade cross the border. Rome, Cinecittà Studios, 1940: On the set of the first Italian film in color, a "regime movie" is in progress. Skilled technicians are coming to Cinecittà from the U.S. to teach Italians how to work with color print, but they are stopped in Customs. Mr. Hogan ends up, by chance, in Cinecittà and is taken for one of the technicians. He is involved gradually in the set organization and, inspired by his Communist ideology, persuades the director to focus the feature on the real and hard life of the countryside, with workers and peasants as actors. Mr. Hogan begins to propagandize on the set and tries to persuade everyone to join the Communist Party, but the "actors," loyal supporters of the Fascist Regime, revolt against him. The peasant "revolt" is filmed: the first neorealist scene of the Italian cinema! Mr. Hogan escapes and brings the film to his French comrades, to show them "the Italian Revolution".
