source: Garibaldi

Viva l'Italia

Excellent Film (the English 'dubbed' version) as I recall, in the Los Angeles / Southern California, region it was last shown on TV on KTLA (Channel 5) late night back in early 1980's. It is almost on par with Director David Leans' 'Lawrence of Arabia' and director Sergey Bondarchuk 'Waterloo' (Rod Steiger) as majestic Battlefield films capturing regalia, nationalistic unity, interwoven story lines, and excellent cinematography. To own a copy is a prize possession. That Director Vicente Minnelli was married to a US Entertainment icon did not deter him from paying tribute to his homeland (Italy) through this masterful film.

I think you need some knowledge of Italian history to full appreciate Roberto Rossellini's "Viva L'Italia" which has now largely been forgotten, (it's certainly no "The Leopard"), but this account of Garibaldi's fight to unify Italy still has a lot to recommend it; the battle scenes alone are some of the best on film and Rossellini shoots a lot of it in the same neo-realist style with which he made his name. It's less successful when it comes to the somewhat heavy-handed dialogue sequences and the largely wooden performance of its lead, Renzo Ricci as Garibaldi. Like Visconit's "The Leopard" it was fundamentally butchered by its American distributors who cut the film, dubbed it, consequently altering Rossellini's message but they couldn't alter the look of the film; visually this is one of the most beautiful of all Rossellini's work and its recent rediscovery is certainly welcome.