''While There's War There's Hope'' ( it, Finché c'è guerra c'è speranza) is a 1974 satirical

Commedia all'italiana Commedia all'italiana (, pl. Commedie all'italiana, "Comedy in the Italian way") or Italian-style comedy is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mar ...

film written, directed and starring

Alberto Sordi Alberto Sordi (15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003) was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, director and screenwriter. Early life Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician and the last of five children, Sordi was named in hon ...

. The film's success in Italy led to its title becoming a proverb.

Plot

Pietro Chiocca (Alberto Sordi) is an Italian retailer, who sells hydraulic pumps. He realizes he will make money only if he starts selling weapons to poor Third World countries. Soon he becomes a millionaire and can afford to offer his family a comfortable lifestyle with villas, jewels, a swimming pool, and other luxuries. Nobody knows anything about his real business. Unexpectedly, a journalist discovers Pietro's job, and describes it in an indignant article. Both family and friends feel ashamed. Then Pietro, in a shrewd speech, tells his kin that the splendor of the family's life is due precisely to his own peculiar business. If they want, he adds, he can stop selling weapons immediately, but then the family has to return to the previous (much more modest) lifestyle. He tells them he will go to bed to rest because the next day, he will need to get up early to return to his job. They can choose to let him sleep and stop trading arms or wake him early and accept his trade. In the end scene, he is awakened by the waitress earlier than he requested on the instruction of his family.

Cast

as Pietro Chiocca * Silvia Monti as Silvia, Pietro's wife * Alessandro Cutolo as Pietro's Uncle * Matilde Costa Giuffrida as Pietro's Mother-in-law * Edoardo Faieta as Gutierrez * Mauro Firmani as Dicky * Eliana De Santis as Giada * Sergio Puppo as Balcazar * Roy Bosier as Rabal *

Samuel Cummings Samuel Cummings, (February 7, 1927 – April 29, 1998) was an American small arms dealer. He founded the International Armament Corporation (also known as Interarms or Interarmco) in 1953, a company which came to dominate the free world market ...

as Himself

References

External links

* Italian comedy films Italian satirical films Commedia all'italiana 1973 comedy films 1973 films Films directed by Alberto Sordi Films scored by Piero Piccioni Films about arms trafficking Films set in France Films set in Milan Films shot in Senegal 1970s Italian films {{1970s-Italy-comedy-film-stub