It is true that Vittorio De Sica's work has deteriorated considerably in the past decade. But it is also, I would submit, still equally true that both the overall body of his films and his best pictures (Bicycle Thieves, Miracolo a Milano, Umberto D, and to a somewhat lesser extent I Bambini Ci Guardano), remain fully worthy of comparison with those of Antonioni, Visconti or Fellini….

Made under Fascist rule, I Bambini Ci Guardano (1943) was regarded at the time of its issue as being sufficiently dangerous in its implied criticisms of contemporary Italian morals to be banned from showing outside Rome: and even today, the fame of De Sica's later pictures has overshadowed it…. [Within] this comparatively early work are already displayed the mature qualities of technical assurance and psychological penetration which were to produce the post-war masterpieces.

I Bambini … is domestic tragedy, as distinct from the economic...