Alternate Best Actor 1946: Franco Interlenghi in Shoeshine

Franco Interlenghi did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Pasquale Maggi in Shoeshine

Shoeshine follows two shoeshine boys who essentially inadvertently get involved in a robbery that leads them to a juvenile detention center. 

Shoeshine falls into the neorealist work of Vittorio De Sica, who at his best found such emotional power in often very simple yet potent stories set in a very real world. Shoeshine falls into such a film where we very tangible experience the world through the eyes of our two boys Pasquale and Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni), as they traverse a world of poverty where they take on jobs eagerly to squeak by though with dreams of one day buying a horse. Child leads in this period were notable and really only tolerable in European films where we got actual performances from child performers. This film is a clear example of such as with Interlenghi and Smordoni there is a natural reality of their work where you simply believe both boys are boys in this life. Something that might sound simple enough but watch one American child performance from the time and you will see it was hardly the standard for cinema as a whole. Interlenghi in particular has a bit more of a striking presence about him where his face has this quiet simmering sense of determination but also the weight of his life in his eyes at all times. Where you do see De Sica’s approach very much has a pivotal choice in capturing those faces and finding power of those faces, something one would see again in short order in the Bicycle Thieves.  

We follow the boys going through their lives until they get basically set up to be fall guys for some adult criminals and end up in the detention center. The lead up to this is where we see both actors as this unit of just togetherness, and while we don’t spend too much time speaking complication there is a natural sense of connection and warmth that grants you the idea of their friendship. Within the detention center what we get within De Sica’s overall vision is showing the community of the boys within the center, both good and bad, along with the nature of the system designed to be quite callous to the poverty stricken and in many ways seeks to quite brutally find out anything incriminating that they can out of the boys. Within that however it does lean the film towards the old bingo word of “director’s film” where I will say the performances are of this tapestry. I should note a fundamental part because to craft reality the boys must be wholly convincing which they are. The presentation of them though is showing them very stuck within the progression of this system where there is a very specific intention of setting the boys against each other in order for them to determine the information around their crime. 

Interlenghi’s often reaction based work is always good in reflecting the harshness of the system, although we only get a few very specific moments where we have the direct emphasis of his performance. To his credit he does make the most of these moments, the first being when he is being interrogated and Pasquale thinks they are torturing Giuseppe, cruelly using his love for his friend to actually betray his friend by confessing information about the crime. Interlenghi’s work is moving in the scene because you see in the reaction less fear for himself but rather the sensitive devastation of hearing what he thinks is his friend, suffering so severely. Interlenghi finds power in showing the tough kid as just a real kid in pain and particularly representing the real love for his friend. Unfortunately this causes a rift between the friends as Pasquale is labeled an informant by the other boys, creating a distinct rift between the friends. Where again Interlenghi’s work becomes mostly reactive again however he’s good in bringing a bit more emotional vulnerability in those reactions reflecting the changes from the situation and creating the sense of isolation. Leading to the end of the film where Giuseppe joins an escape attempt without his friend, leading Pasquale to openly inform this time. Interlenghi’s very good in his delivery of this betrayal with the desperate rage not of a man, but of just a heartbroken boy making an immature, yet very much a boy’s choice to get back at his friend. As a boy or as an adult, the betrayal is regardless of reality so far that Pasquale chooses to directly and tragically confront Giuseppe. Interlenghi’s great thought in creating the two contrasts even in such immediacy, capturing the ferocity of his anger at his friend to then his direct uncompromising horror of what comes immediately afterwards. Interlenghi finds the pain so honestly, and very much through the experience of a boy struggling with his emotions so earnestly and seeing the real victim within a cruel system. And while part of the large tapestry I would say Interlenghi manages to still find his impact in showing that progression of the tough kid with a friend to really a wholly broken kid without one.