Miracolo A Milano (aka Miracle In Milan) (1951)

A baby is found in a cabbage patch by an old woman (Emma Gramatica) who adopts him as her own. After her death, the boy (Gianni Branduani) is sent to an orphanage. As a young man (Francesco Golisano, who looks like Jay Leno), he has a kind and naive nature. Along with a group of poverty stricken people, they take a piece of abandoned land and turn it into a shantytown. Directed by Vittorio De Sica, this slight piece of whimsical fantasy came between his two dramatic neorealist classics, THE BICYCLE THIEF and UMBERTO D. The film has been compared to the works of Chaplin and Rene Clair and its satirical eye has an affection for its common folk who don't seem unduly disturbed by their poverty. It's probably best not to make too much out of the movie which finds De Sica in a playful mood. The film's final fantastic fantasy takes away the pain of the actuality of what would have happened to these people in "real" life. With Brunella Bovo and Paolo Stoppa.