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The Great War

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The Great War

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Also known as Great War, La grande guerra

1959 film by Mario Monicelli

Film · TMDB

8.1

Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.

Released: 1959-10-28137 minDir: Mario MonicelliComedy, War, Drama

Cast

  • Vittorio Gassman as Giovanni Busacca
  • Alberto Sordi as Oreste Jacovacci
  • Silvana Mangano as Costantina
  • Folco Lulli as Bordin
  • Bernard Blier as Capitano Castelli
  • Romolo Valli as Tenente Gallina

Themes

  • world war i
  • 1910s
  • war

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Ratings

IMDb

8.1/10

5,061 votes

Year
1959
Runtime
137 min
Genres
Comedy, Drama, War

via IMDb

Key facts

Directed by
Mario Monicelli
Written by
Agenore Incrocci , Mario Monicelli, Furio Scarpelli , Luciano Vincenzoni
Produced by
Dino De Laurentiis
Starring
Alberto Sordi , Vittorio Gassman , Folco Lulli , Bernard Blier , Romolo Valli , Silvana Mangano
Cinematography
Giuseppe Rotunno , Leonida Barboni , Roberto Gerardi , Giuseppe Serrandi
Edited by
Adriana Novelli
Music by
Nino Rota
Release date
September 1959 ( 1959-09 ) (premiere at VFF )
Running time
135 minutes
Countries
Italy, France
Language
Italian

via Wikipedia infobox

~10 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The Great War (Italian: La grande guerra) is a 1959 Italian comedy-drama war film directed by Mario Monicelli. It tells the story of an odd couple of army buddies in World War I; the movie, while played on a comedic register, does not hide from the viewer the horrors and grimness of trench warfare. Starring Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, the film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Its crew also included Danilo Donati (costumes) and Mario Garbuglia (set designer).

It was an Academy Award nominee as Best Foreign Film. 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." It won huge success outside Italy, especially in France.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Great War” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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