Bicycle Thieves

“Antonio is a poor man who is thrilled when he is at last offered a job: delivering and putting up movie posters. But he needs a bicycle, and must supply his own...On his first day at work, the unlocked machine is stolen...This is a story that magnificently withholds the comic or dramatic palliatives another sort of film might have introduced...The son is the intimate witness of the father's humiliation, his inadequacy as a provider.”