One of Fellini's strongest endings in this film. Broderick Crawford's acting was outstanding.

Fellini's Il Bidone ("The Swindle") follows aging grifter Augusto and his crew, initially on a number of cons that might be more amusing if they weren't swindling people who don't deserve it. Still my jam, but this vision of post-war Italy doesn't really allow for romantic notions of Robin Hood-ism. It is an amoral world where nothing is sacred, where even the Catholic Church's authority can be usurped by petty crooks, and indeed, when Augusto seems to grow a conscience (and even that is false, or partly false), his world rejects him with tragic consequences. The grifting world's lack of empathy works hand in hand with a lack of personal connection with others. If you don't care about anyone, it allows you to do terrible things. And so the one man saved is Picasso, whose goodly wife (Fellini's muse, Giulietta Masina, who we don't get enough of) makes him doubt and eventually fade from view. Augusto seems possible salvation in his estranged daughter, but it leads him to ruin. And of course, grifters can turn on each other, no matter the stated friendships. Augusto, well played by Broderick Crawford (who I imagine was dubbed in Italian), is a man the world is passing by. He doesn't understand how all his colleagues have moved on to bigger and better things while he's still pulling off the same old swindles. And similarly, he doesn't see his way out of it because even his best intentions are tainted by the wrong reflexes.

This should also be counted as part of The Criterion Collection. It is one of the films in their Essential Fellini set.