"Actor: Vittorio Vittori"

• Hawks and Sparrows | DVD | (23/07/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  One of the handful of films that found Pier Paolo Pasolini sustaining a merrier mode of cultural assault, Hawks And Sparrows (Uccellacci E Uccellini) features Italy's popular comic actor Tot (known to cinephiles as the star of Roberto Rossellini's Dov' la liberta...?) and Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli in a picaresque fable that lampoons politics, religion, and the legacy of neorealism.A crow gifted with the power of speech accompanies wandering duo Tot and Ninetto on a trail that leads to their roles as Franciscan friars who preach to the literal hawks and sparrows, before returning in time to gaze upon slum-dwellers, Danteist dentists, itinerant actor-hippies, and, ultimately, the state of the modern world.

• Il Generale Della Rovere | DVD | (04/07/2011) from £12.13   |  Saving you £7.86 (39.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Roberto Rossellini's box-office success after a string of commercial failures notably with Ingrid Bergman was also a return to the themes of the films which brought him international fame Rome Open City and his other neorealist classics. Based on an article by the Italian journalist Indro Montanelli Rossellini casts Vittorio De Sica as confidence trickster Emanuele Bardone who helps to save Italians arrested by the Gestapo or at least pretending to do so in exchange for money or gifts from their family. When he attempts to save a man already executed he is turned over by the man's wife and is given the choice of execution or carrying out a confidence trick for the Germans; to assume the identity of the General Della Rovere. Turning on his country to save his skin Bardone enters prison to seek out the identity of the partisan commander Fabrizio. Arrow Academy is pleased to present Roberto Rossellini's gripping resistance story with Vittorio De Sica in one of his greatest performances on DVD for the first time in the UK.