Poverty and Nobility

Poverty and Nobility (Miseria e nobiltà, 1954) is a Neapolitan comedy by Mario Mattoli that you can watch online on iFILM. Two broke families scrape by in old Naples — the clerk Felice and the photographer Pasquale sometimes can't even afford lunch. Then a bizarre paying gig lands in their laps.

Young marquis Eugenio has fallen for Gemma, the daughter of a cook who struck it rich. Her father wants to marry into the aristocracy, but Eugenio can't exactly parade his own relatives. So the starving neighbors take his money to impersonate the noble "uncle" and "father" he never had. Totò, as Felice, turns the whole charade into a fireworks display of gags, while a young Sophia Loren plays the neighbor Gemma on the edge of stardom.

The film grew out of Eduardo Scarpetta's stage farce, and the famous scene where Totò stuffs fistfuls of spaghetti straight into his pockets has long been a calling card of Italian comedy. This is pure, unpadded farce about poor men playing rich — an easy way in to Italy's greatest clown. Stream Poverty and Nobility (1954) online on iFILM.