(Some spoilers) "Sunday's Heroes" is a movie about the private lives and loves of a group of Series B soccer players who have a chance to play the Series A team of Milan. Raf Vallone (former soccer player in real life) is a player here, Gino Bardi, who is offered a large amount of money to cause the team to lose. The offer comes via a woman with whom he is having an affair. His young hero-admirer, a boy nicknamed "Lenticchia" or "Lentil," overhears the scheme and attempts to dissuade his hero from following through.
The match itself occupies the last third of the film. A physical ailment causes Vallone to play badly at first, but summoning up all his strength, and almost costing him his life, he is able to bring the team to victory and a new bonding with the woman he truly loves. The movie is a kind of soap opera with added soccer action. The scenes on the field, loud and raucous as they are, tend to be the most boring of the movie, because of the dull way they are shot. The film didn't have an enormous popular success. The Italians' love for soccer doesn't always translate into love for soccer films.
Other notable examples of that genre were the 1932 "Cinque a zero" of Mario Bonnard and the 1987 "Ultimo minuto" by Pupi Avati. Mario Camerini's direction in this entry can best be described as serviceable but uninspired. There are a number of great cast members, including Marcello Mastroianni as a player (very small role), Paolo Stoppa, Franco Interlenghi, Erno Crisa, Elena Varzi, and Cosetta Greco. The young boy who admires Gino and is instrumental in keeping him noble and virtuous is played by Guido Martufi, whose claim to fame was as the young railroad worker who has a recurring part in Fellini's "I vitelloni" and whose image of him walking away on a railroad track ended that eloquent film.
The match itself occupies the last third of the film. A physical ailment causes Vallone to play badly at first, but summoning up all his strength, and almost costing him his life, he is able to bring the team to victory and a new bonding with the woman he truly loves. The movie is a kind of soap opera with added soccer action. The scenes on the field, loud and raucous as they are, tend to be the most boring of the movie, because of the dull way they are shot. The film didn't have an enormous popular success. The Italians' love for soccer doesn't always translate into love for soccer films.
Other notable examples of that genre were the 1932 "Cinque a zero" of Mario Bonnard and the 1987 "Ultimo minuto" by Pupi Avati. Mario Camerini's direction in this entry can best be described as serviceable but uninspired. There are a number of great cast members, including Marcello Mastroianni as a player (very small role), Paolo Stoppa, Franco Interlenghi, Erno Crisa, Elena Varzi, and Cosetta Greco. The young boy who admires Gino and is instrumental in keeping him noble and virtuous is played by Guido Martufi, whose claim to fame was as the young railroad worker who has a recurring part in Fellini's "I vitelloni" and whose image of him walking away on a railroad track ended that eloquent film.
