Rome Open City - Operatic, Exciting, Totally Worth Watching

"Rome Open City" is a great movie that holds up perfectly after so many years - filmed in the late 40s in what is obviously still a war-ravaged Rome, mostly on location settings, on the cheap. I hadn't seen it in 35 years at least, remembered nothing about it, was completely blown away by the excitement, the tension, the moral/religious quandaries, the emotions, the politics. Sure, Rossellini lays it on a bit thick at times - but that's okay because this film is almost operatic, in fact it will remind you of Tosca, its clear antecedent (a tyrant tortures a political leftist while another, in this case a priest, is forced to listen to the screams of pain). "Rome Open City" is about resistance to the Nazi occupiers. The movie begins as the (Nazi) police storm a building, looking for one of the resisters, who escapes to the rooftop and gets away. (Reminds of the later but in some ways similar "Battle of Algiers.") Story is largely about this guy and his friend, a printer, with whom he hides, their relationship with a few women, one of whom (Anna Magnini, fabulous) is faithful and brave. Others are not. They work closely with a very sympathetic priest, who uses his cover as a clergyman to deliver funds and info to the resistance movement. You're always on edge watching this movie. Anyone could be arrested or shot at any time. The reality of the film is brutal. In so many similar movies, you know the lead characters will survive, because they're stars - but here any character can go at any time. The only flaw I can see, the only thing that really "dates" "Rome Open City," is the musical soundtrack - blasting and melodramatic and unnecessary, though unfortunately typical of many Italian films of the era. Very good new print from Criterion. I had to look up "open city"; never knew before exactly what it meant.