Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1964

The Contenders:

Father Goose (winner)
A Hard Day’s Night
One Potato, Two Potato
The Organizer (I Compagni)
That Man from Rio (L’homme de Rio)

Rabble Rousing

Film: I Compagni (The Organizer)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

Fifteen minutes into I Compagni (The Organizer) and I paused the film. I was sure that this was made by Vittorio de Sica since quite a bit of it reminded me of Ladri di Biciclette. No soap, though. This is a film by Mario Monicelli, so any similarities to de Sica are either coincidental or homage.

Evidently, the world needed more films about the poor and oppressed workers of the world, because that is precisely where we’re going to be for the vast bulk of this film. Specifically in this case, we’re going to be in Turin, Italy, and dealing with the workers of a massive textile factory around the end of the 19th century. As with many factory workers during all stages of the Industrial Revolution, the workers here are the very definition of oppressed. We see young Omero (Franco Ciolli), a teenaged boy who by all right should be in school, getting up before the sun to get to work. The workday starts at 6:00am and ends at 8:30pm, with a half hour break for lunch. It’s not specifically brought up, but I’d suspect that it’s also a six-day work week. Our first day in the factory with the workers concludes with an old man getting his hand caught in one of the massive machines.