I fully agree with all the glowing accolades of other commenters and totally disagree with the one commenter who thought it was "uneven." This is one of the greatest films ever made, partly because the humanity of the characters and the choices they must make are really what life is all about. If only present-day film makers (producers, directors, writers, etc) would concentrate their efforts towards making films of this caliber, what a much better world this would be. Instead, desiring profits over quality, they go for the lowest common denominator, and continue to make films bereft of the poetry of life, and full of gore, violence, guns, explosions, terror, and all sorts of ugliness and gratuitous noise. They think "this is what the public wants." How wrong they are. One interesting aside: I believe that Rosselini wasn't really as satisfied with this film as much as audiences are. If that rumor is true, it can only be an example of an artist not realizing the impact and importance of a particular work they have created.

Unlike some Italian films (such as several by Fellini), this is a very direct and approachable film for the average viewer--no symbolism, odd camera-work or surreal aspects at all. As such, it's a good film as an introduction to international cinema.Vittorio De Sica does a marvelous job playing the role of a rogue who swindles money from desperate relatives seeking information and help about their loved ones held in Nazi jails in occupied Italy. Eventually, it all catches up to him and he is offered a chance to avoid a LONG jail term or even execution--he is to impersonate a general who is leading those Italians seeking to expel the Germans. It seems the Nazis accidentally killed this general when he was trying to escape and they wanted to PRETEND he was still alive in order to smoke out members of the resistance. At first, De Sica agrees but over time he has a hard time remaining so cynical and self-absorbed. His transformation seems believable--from a thief to a patriot and is well worth watching.

Vittorio de Sica stars as a petty gambler and con artist near the end of the Second World War. His gambling losses are so bad that he has to swindle friends for money; oftentimes he does so with the promise of freeing imprisoned loved ones (and sometimes he even succeeds at doing so). One swindle goes wrong, and the victim informs the Nazis of what De Sica is doing. Instead of simply imprisoning him, they make a deal: if in prison he poses as General della Rovere, who was killed in an escape attempt, and root out a certain partisan leader, they will pay him off and ship him to Switzerland. De Sica is no great man, but he is also no spy. But, initially, he does what the Nazis tell him to do. This film should probably be much better than it is, but it just lacks the passion of Rossellini's earlier films. Sure, they were overly melodramatic, but I don't think the way to fix them is flatten out all the emotions of the film. Rossellini did make a nearly perfect film after his strictly neorealistic period in Stromboli, and General della Rovere, a decade later, is a huge step in the wrong direction. There are a few excellent scenes, but nowhere near enough. It helps that it ends so well. It certainly hinders the project that the whole swindling part of the film lasts for almost half the film, at around an hour. De Sica's character isn't very consistent between the two halves, either. Blame that on the script, though, because De Sica is generally great throughout the entire film. Sandra Milo, who would later co-star in Fellini's 8½ and Juliette of the Spirits, has a small role. 6/10.

Though I've only seen this film once, when I was actually young, it has remained one of my lifetime 'greatest' films. It deals with how each of us has a self image, and how that self image, and the lives we lead, may be influenced by how others view us. This is, I think, one of the great common themes of our lives - and this movie examines it beautifully. Though I saw it so long ago, I still remember it each time I see an example of its theme played out in today's events. Most notably, in the U.S., it has been shown in the direction that many (but not all) of our Supreme Court justices take once they receive their lifetime posts. Their thoughts, no matter how narrow they had been, become wider and wiser once that mantle of office settles onto their personalities. This great movie prepared me to see and understand this miraculous process - and others like it.