Un inizio contro. Censura e scrittura in Gioventù perduta

Thanks to the discovery of documents never studied before, this essay reconstructs the complex and articulated dynamics underlying the “case” Gioventù perduta (Pietro Germi, 1948), triggered by a press campaign against censorship closely linked to the fiery political pre-electoral climate of the moment, as well as to the instrumental defense of neorealism to which Pietro Germi’s film is assimilated as anti-fascist. However, a detailed comparison between the drafts of the screenplay found in the Cristaldi archives and between the most significant variants, together with the analysis of some sequences, demonstrate the noir ancestry and the underlying links of Gioventù perduta with Alfred Hitchcock and his film Shadow of a Doubt (1943), much more than with neorealism. Even though in January 1948 Gioventù perduta obtained approval – on condition that the changes requested by censorship were implemented – precisely to dispel the suspicion of an anti-neorealist government maneuver.