Vitelloni, I

The first of Fellini’s portraits of his formative years is a satirical but affectionate depiction of the aimless lives of a group of young men in a small Italian town (in reality Rimini, Fellini's hometown) with the now well-known Fellini autobiographical trademarks – the carnivalesque street scenes, the morning after the revelry, the eccentric and grotesque characters, the sexual misadventures and yearning hearts of callow youth and so on as well as Nina Rota's music and various cast members seen in other Fellini films including Alberto Sordi and Leopoldo Trieste who had both appeared in the director’s previous film, The White Sheik (1951) 

Although the narration is by an anonymous voice, Franco Interlenghi occupies the role of Fellini’s alter ego, Moraldo, a character that a few years later would morph into Marcello in La Dolce Vita (1960), played by Marcello Mastroianni who would thereafter act as Fellini's screen surrogate. 

The film was co-scripted by Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli, Fellini's collaborators for many subsequent films including La Dolce Vita and 8 & 1/2 (1963).

 

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