Escape by Night (1960) User Reviews (10)

Well done...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 20 November 2015]

Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica are two directors known for being the premier Neo-Realists. A Neo-Realistic film is one which is not filmed on sets but in the natural environment. And, the actors in the movie aren't professional actors. And, the stories are about ordinary folks. They were made this way simply because Italy was in ruins following WWII and this was the only way the COULD make pictures. While "Escape by Night" is by Rossellini and looks a lot like a Neo-Realist film, it isn't quite. It sure has the look and the story is about ordinary folk but the people in the movie, at least in starring roles, are real honest-to-goodness actors--mostly because by 1960 the Italian film industry was strong and growing. Had the film been made a decade or so earlier, it probably would have been an actual example of Neo-Realism. Now this does not mean the movie is bad in any way...it's not.

This is the story of three soldiers who have escaped from a Fascist concentration camp, and American, an Englishman and a Russian. While this composition isn't realistic, it made for an interesting film. And, there were a lot of escaped Allied prisoners who were helped by ordinary Italians according to this film. The plot is VERY simple...the three men are shuttled from home to home to home until they could either make their escape or they would be liberated by the approaching troops.

The acting and sets are all very realistic and the film is engaging. Perhaps it's not exactly fun or a must-see but it is well made.

By the way, one of the more interesting cast members here is the Russian actor, Sergey Bondarchuk. While not a household name outside the old Soviet Union, this man was an incredibly brilliant director as well and helmed perhaps the most incredible Soviet movie ever made, "War and Peace". Depending on the edit, this sweeping sage is between 4 and 8 1/2 hours long! I'm crazy...I've seen it twice...the long version!

I Just Don't Get What All the Excitement Is About

[allanradman · 6/10 · 6 May 2012]

SPOILER ALERT (Shortened Review: Nowhere near the drama I was expecting):

I watched the 133 minute version on Netflix based on the positive reviews here. But after watching the film, and I don't care about the masterful, under-appreciated directing etc, I just want a good story and something to care about. It doesn't happen. The title led me to believe there was an escape from occupied Italy to somewhere in liberated Italy. This is World War 2 after all and the Germans had occupied Italy for some time after the Sicily invasion and the eventual Italian surrender to the Allies. Even the history is wrong. I don't believe the Germans held Soviet prisoners with the rest of the Allied POWs. Soviet POWs were used as slaves and worked to death. Almost none of the Soviet POWs returned alive after the war. But that is trivial to the plot of the movie. What is awkward is that none of the 3 former Allied POWs escapes - or at least the one who did escape just vanished and the audience is told he escaped. The POW escapees go out on some nights from their attic hide out and into the street on another occasion but that's it. Not really much of an escape for hardened veterans, and officers at that. There are a very few moments of drama when the film picks up. And miraculously, all the non-Italians learn fluent Italian by reading a book and hiding in a dreary attic of our beautiful Italian hero-ette. Even the Russian speaks decent Italian. I knew there was something hokey about the cast when the American POW kissed his Italian male acquaintance on the cheek. No American male would ever do that in an infinite number of centuries, let alone a soldier. The film just didn't flow enough for me and the story dragged with very few moments of drama. It's an above-average film but that's it.

At night in Rome

[dongwangfu · 6/10 · 30 July 2013]

I watched this on Netflix also and although I like De Sica much better (for some reason his melodrama seems less melodramatic!) there were a few points in other reviews with which I wanted to take issue. First, the title means (I think, given my pidgin Italian) "It was night in Rome". "Escape by Night" is indeed a weird choice for an English title, but one can't really fault the movie for that. Also, as for the American acting like an Italian, even Americans can occasionally act according to the adage "When in Rome..." so I don't buy that as an indictment of the historical sense of the film.

The point that is made above about stereotypes is a good one. I would expect Rossellini to accept this criticism -- it is almost as if, fifteen years later, he is setting out to tell his story of the way Italian society adapted to the end of the occupation. The black market, the Church, the aristocracy, the professional class -- they all are caricatured, almost as if he was doing a sociological study of the time. I thought that film succeeded at that level, although of course there is really little character development if all of them are a "type."

One other distinctive feature I wanted to point out is the role of the Communists in the film - - Rossellini paints the Communists as the major anti-fascists and as having sacrificed quite a bit. This wholeheartedly positive portrayal is unfamiliar for me, as someone who grew up in the Cold War era, but according to my limited understanding, historically accurate. Since the film was made in 1960, at the end of the decade of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, though, I wonder if this portrayal was not somewhat pointed?

Just before Anzio

[dbdumonteil · 4 January 2009]

An user complained that Rossellini's movies are overlooked today;he is completely right.Although the Italian New Wave was never so hard and so nasty as their French counterpart on former colleagues,it nevertheless cast a shadow over them.On the European board ,there are plenty of messages about Fellini,Antonioni,Pasolini (and Godard,Truffaut ,Rohmer and co)whereas Rossellini (and De Sica,the great Luigi Comencini)are almost always absent.

He also complained about the cuts in Rossellini's works;however,what was intolerable in "Vanina Vanini" (the first part of which is thoroughly incomprehensible) is not so important in "Era Notte a Roma" . My copy has a running time of about 130 min and that's enough,for I think that it's overlong and even full of filler.

"Era Notte" tells the story of three escaped prisoners during WW2: a Russian,an English and an American.It's also the story of an Italian girl who helps the peasants to get rid of their burdensome guests in exchange for food.She's not a resistance fighter (as his fiancé is) but she will prove herself very human in spite of her weakness.

Rossellini displays respect for the audience: every character speaks his own language ,which gives the movie much more substance than ,for instance ," Uomo della croce " in which everyone spoke Italian.My favorite scene is the Christmas celebration with a very moving "Auld Lang Syne" sung by people from four different countries.It cannot be considered one of Rossellini 's masterworks but its several moments of brilliance make it a must for Rossellini's fans.

Italian War Movie with Giovanna RALLI and Hannes MESSEMER

[ZeddaZogenau · 7/10 · 1 March 2024]

This film is not one of Roberto ROSSELLINI's best, but it provides an impressive story from the Second World War. Soldiers of different nationalities, who therefore speak different languages, try to hide in Rome, which is occupied by the National Socialists. The Roman Esperia (Giovanna RALLI) becomes a figure of hope for these men.

For example, the Russian director Sergei BONDARTSCHUK (the Soviet Russian version of WAR AND PEACE based on the novel by Lev Tolstoy) can be seen as a Soviet soldier. The internationally sought-after German actor Hannes MESSEMER (known from the West German television series DIE DROMBUSCHS on the ZDF television station) plays the Nazi occupier.

What's very interesting is that people speak different languages here, which makes the film very authentic.

Epic account of a small tale

[tentender · 10/10 · 21 February 2006]

Can no one have seen this important Rossellini film? Astonishing it is to be the first to comment in these "pages" on a work by one of the major directors of world cinema (and for the second time -- no one else had commented on "Vanina Vanini" either). Apparently this 145 minute film (that is how it clocked in at the showing I attended) received very little distribution, and, though it is excellent, it is not hard to see why this was so. Its story of three Allied soldiers, one English, one American, one Russian, on the loose in an as-yet-unliberated Italy, is short on wild excitement, but filled with interesting detail and human warmth. Giovanna Ralli is marvelous (and would have been a marvelous Vanina Vanini, if only...) in a complex and emotional role. Peter Baldwin and Renato Salvatori are winningly handsome young men (and are rather lookalikes), and Leo Genn and Sergei Bondarchuk provide solid acting. Rossellini's use of the zoom to make possible "intercutting without cuts" is used to great effect in this film, and the scene in which the spy/informer eavesdrops on the confessional is especially masterful. One of Rossellini's last films before he decided to devote himself exclusively to the small screen, this film is sober, serious, worthy, and, withal, not lacking in value as entertainment. Postscript: I've now had a chance two years later (December 2008) to re-view this film, thanks to a new (and very inexpensive) DVD region 1 release. My second viewing has led me to revise (upward) my evaluation of this beautiful film. Yes, it's long, and seems episodic, but, as in Chekhov's plays and (odd pairing, I know) McCarey's "The Bells of St. Mary's," on second viewing the connections between the episodes are profound and satisfying. The Lionsgate DVD (paired with a second little-known Rossellini feature, "Dov'e la liberta) is a real bargain (available for under $15). The print appears better than that on the region 2 UK disc (see screen captures at DVDBeaver.com), and, though the titles are in French (this is a Franco-Italian co-production) the title itself is given in Italian, unlike that on the UK version. Running time is 2:13.5, compared to 2:08 and change on the region 2 disc (accounted for by the PAL speedup). Subtitles are excellent and unusually thorough. My previously stated running time of 145 is confirmed by Jose Luis Guarnier within the text of his Praeger Film Library monograph from 1970 (though his filmography gives 120 minutes!) There is a strange mis-match in the editing in the first attic scene, which may indicate some foul play. I can't recall any specific missing scene, though. Details aside, this really is a great film.

Aide comes in the most unlikely places.

[mark.waltz · 9/10 · 2 March 2022]

A family of Italian farmers have been helping escaped War prisoners by hiding them in their storage cellar-a Russian, an Englishman and an American, and convince a group of nuns too take them off their hands and drop them in the countryside which results in the youngest of them (who actually isn't a nun) hiding them in her home. They work together to hide from the German occupied Rome, and that creates a meaningful friendship between these foreigners and the locales who show their hospitality and ultimately their Christianity in a very warm way.

Giovanna Ralli, a veteran Italian actress (not as well known as Loren, Lollibrigida or Magnani), is very good, tough but warm, independent but romantic, and doing whatever it takes during World War II to stay alive yet maintain her integrity, fighting for a cause she greatly believes in. Leo Gann as the Brit, Peter Baldwin as the Yank and Sergei Bondarchuk as the Russian are all excellent in a film that really shows the desire for promoting an international human understanding that gives a beautiful account of a humanity fighting for a cause against their leader's desires and represents the post-Mussolini Italy which had fallen into Nazi hands.

Under the direction of one of italy's greatest directors (Roberto Rossellini), this film is beautifully done, heard in Italian, English and a little bit of Russian, and is one of the great post-war films about the war. It's more of a human story than a war story, showing how people from around the world have more in common than they think with their desires for freedom and the ability to lead their lives free of fascism and outside control. The opening scene with the nuns is very funny as they barter for goods, utilizing that old and well utilized tool of guilt to get what is needed, yet allowing the farmers, living in fear of discovery. I assumed that the two elderly nuns were simply in disguise as well as the Germans guarding the road between Rome and the countryside didn't question them. An excellent film that is heartwarming in its theme of survival during a time of international crisis.

Not a patch on il generale della rovere

[simon-1303 · 5/10 · 6 June 2007]

I like a lot of Rossellini, but there is the odd clinker. Here's why:

it's not sure if it's propaganda, documentary or drama, or all three ; it's set in a blackout, so it's more unrelieved grey than black and white; it's largely set in tenement garrets, though some odd scenes elsewhere; there are few attractive compositions, except repeated shots of the Rome skyline; it has national clichés instead of characters: impulsive American, reserved Brit, bad German, good German, bad fascist, emotional Italian etc. ; the characters enter and leave the film almost at random ; the dramatic scenes aren't, they stop and start abruptly and are poorly linked; plot developments seem to come out of nowhere; the interesting things often happen off screen; characters' behaviour is often reckless to the point of incredulity.

Apparently rewritten, screenplayed, edited and scored on the hoof, with a great deal of family involvement,and I'm afraid it shows. sorry for being so negative.

Rossellini's WW2 Drama Misses The Mark

[strong-122-478885 · 3/10 · 13 August 2014]

For starters - At an unbearable 134 minutes, this 1960, WW2 Drama, directed by Italian film-maker, Roberto Rossellini, was truly something of an endurance test for this frustrated and bored viewer.

Escape By Night's action (or lack of it) was set at such a deliberately s-l-o-w snail's pace, and every situation was dragged out beyond reason, that, sure enough, I ended up nodding off to sleep more than once.

On top of that, this wartime picture did not contain one, single battle scene in it. You can be sure, had a few worthwhile explosions taken place, here & there, that definitely would have helped to alleviate some of this story's stifling monotony.

In this tale of cat-n-mouse, all that Rossellini seemed concerned about was dealing with the trifling personal dramas that dogged its characters.

But, unfortunately, this directorial short-sightedness on Rosellini's part didn't go over very well with this viewer, since none of the characters in the story were really all that interesting or worthy of much attention to begin with.

Believe it or not - The absolute highlight of this mundane picture was when a turkey (that's right - a turkey!!) escaped from Esperia's home and this excitement sent all of the delighted, neighbourhood children scampering down the dirty street after it.

Complicated and intelligent

[parsifalssister · 17 October 2010]

Although it has its faults, as described in the review above, it is also a complex, intelligent document of the war. With Rome as a symbolic backdrop, three POWs arrive into the safe, but reluctant arms of a smuggler, and hide during an unspecified time just before the Allies reach the City.

All of the characters speak in their own tongue, which is the complicated part, but it is not without its sense of authenticity in the circumstances. But even with these language and cultural barriers, the main characters create several dynamic exchanges.

The pace is slow; the color bleak; the dialog often abbreviated; the relationships in doubt; yet, ultimately, we come to understand the forest of emotion we all experience during crisis, and war is among the most severe of crises.

The Italian female lead is engaging and the British Major congenial. The Italians are splendid as both collaborator and rescuer. The Germans play a less significant role, but they remain the fodder for how choices are made of who will live or die, even as the war draws near to the end.

The last 20 minutes are spellbinding as those choices are crystallized and strengthened by honesty, integrity and treachery.