Il Bidone (1955) Criterion 1080p BluRay x265 HEVC FLAC-SARTRE
Il Bidone
Drama Crime
Aging small-time con man Augusto (Broderick Crawford), who swindles peasants, works with two younger men: Roberto, who wants to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso (Richard Basehart), who has a wife and daughter and wants to paint. Augusto avoids the personal entanglements, spending money at clubs seeking the good life. His attitude changes when he runs into his own daughter, whom he rarely sees, and realizes she's now a young woman and in need of his help to continue her studies. His usual partners are away, so he goes in with others to run a swindle, and they aren't forgiving when he claims he's given the money back to their mark. They leave him beaten, robbed, and alone.
Between the international triumphs of La strada and Nights of Cabiria, Federico Fellini made this fascinatingly unique film, which has been long overlooked. Largely eschewing the poetic flourishes of the more famous works that bookend it, Il bidone is a dark neorealist crime drama starring a commanding Broderick Crawford as one of the most complex characters in the director’s canon: an aging con man who, having made a career preying on the desperation of poor peasants, suddenly finds that his crooked ways have begun to catch up with him. Masterfully entwining the story’s human grit with elements of humor and pathos, Fellini crafts a searing portrait of a man reckoning with the consequences of his life’s choices that hits with the force of a profound moral tragedy.
IMDB
Code:
STARS...........: Broderick Crawford, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart
DIRECTOR........: Federico Fellini
WRITERS.........: Ennio Flaiano, Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli
GENRE...........: Drama, Crime
TOMATOMETER.....: 100/79
IMDB SCORE......: 7.5
IMDB LINK.......: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047876
RUNTIME.........: 1h 53mn
SIZE............: 8.18 GB
VIDEO CODEC.....: HEVC (Main10@L4)
BITRATE.........: 10000 Kbps (2-pass)
RESOLUTION......: 1480x1080
ASPECT RATIO....: 1.37:1
FRAMERATE.......: 23.976 fps
AUDIO1..........: Italian FLAC 1.0
AUDIO2..........: Commentary by film scholar Frank Burke (2020)
SUBTITLES.......: ENG
SOURCE..........: Criterion Blu-ray
ENCODE DATE.....: 2025-12-20
Extras
• Audio Commentary by film scholar Frank Burke (2020)
• Interview with Fellini's assistant director Dominique Delouche
