Gli anni ruggenti (Die Goldenen Jahre)

The announcement that an auditor appointed by the fascist government in Rome is to come to the sleepy, poverty-stricken Apulian town of Gioiavallata for an audit terrifies the thoroughly corrupt town council. Nikolai Gogol's story The Auditor served as the model, but instead of Ivan Khlestakov from St. Petersburg, Homer Battifiori (Nino Manfredi), a young man from Rome, appears here. Despite all the modernisation of which the Duce loudly boasts, the majority of Italy's population lives in bitter poverty. Full of sharpness and humour, Luigi Zampa shows a miserable past by mercilessly exposing the weaknesses of a regime that began with beatings and the death of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, thus paving the way for fascism. (Elisabeth Streit)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum