General della Rovere is a 1959 Italian film directed by Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...

. The film is based on a novel by Indro Montanelli

Indro Montanelli

Indro Montanelli was an Italian journalist and historian, known for his new approach to writing history in books such as History of the Greeks and History of Rome....

 which was in turn based on a true story.

Plot

The film tells the story of a petty thief (played by Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio de Sica

Vittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....

) who is hired by the Nazis to impersonate an Italian resistance leader, General della Rovere, and infiltrate a group of resistance prisoners in a Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

prison.