GIOVENTÙ PERDUTA (Lost Youth, Italy 1948) The 19-year-old Stefano, son of a university professor, is the leader of a criminal student gang whose last robbery led to someone being shot dead. Inspector Mariani (Massimo Girotti) is on their trail and suspects Stefano of the crime, but wants to resign anyway after falling in love with Stefano’s sister Luisa (Carla Del Poggio). The film’s central theme is the subject of a lecture by Stefano’s father: the high level of criminality among the younger generations two years after the end of the war is not a consequence of the large-scale poverty in the country, but has rather been brought about by the loss of values in the years of dictatorship and war. In his second film, Pietro Germi links together Neorealism and genre borrowings in virtuoso style and takes his bearings from film noir in terms of lighting, production design and atmosphere, with signs of US culture highly present: the protagonist wears a white trench coat, Camel cigarettes are traded as a currency, and the nightclub singer signs of Hawaii.