76 years ago, one of the world’s most famous directors was hidden in this iconic film, rated 4.1 out of 5.

When a great director filmed in front of someone else’s camera! It often happens that future directors started out as actors – we think of course Clint Eastwood, but also Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck, Greta Gerwig or Ida Lupino and many others.

This time we’re interested in Sergio Leone, the legendary Italian director who owes us timeless classics like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once in the West and Once in America. The latter appears in an additional role in the famous bicycle thief, directed by Vittorio de Sica.

Stop at 42 minutes and 27 seconds

We can see the young 19-year-old director as a seminarian during a scene of heavy rain that forces Antonio, the hero played by Lamberto Majorani, to take shelter against a wall while waiting for it to stop. Then everyone leaves:

Leone even takes a close-up, as he literally stands next to Antonio:

Technically, Sergio Leone had already appeared at the age of 12 and was uncredited in Roberto Roberti’s La Bocca sulla strada in 1941, but his first adult role was as a bicycle thief.

A director who blows up codes with dynamite

Leone would appear in front of the camera again, almost always in discreet roles, until 1954, while also becoming an assistant director from 1946 (Rigoletto) to 1962 (En avant la musique), when he began preparing his first feature film. The film, Il Magnifico Straniero, which would become Per un pugno di dollari, Pour une Fistful de Dollars.

The film revolutionized the Western and its performance for decades to come and launched his career as a director, leading to his final film, Once Upon a Time in America (1984).