Luigi Comencini
© AFP/GN/File Andrea Merola

ROME (AFP) - Comencini was best known for his 1953 hit, "Bread, Love and Dreams" starring Gina Lollobrigida and Vittorio De Sica, a film that spawned two sequels and helped turned the page on Italy's neorealism movement.

Comencini directed 50 movies -- including "Traffic Jam" in 1979 and "Misunderstood" in 1966 -- many of which focused on the plight of children and the working man. He also wrote about 40 screenplays.

He paired the American actress Bette Davis with Alberto Sordi in the semi-black comedy "The Millionairess" in 1972.

Street children were at the centre of Comencini's early career, with "Children in Cities" in 1946 followed three years later by "Stealing Forbidden."

The theme would be a common thread throughout his work, notably with the films "Misunderstood" (1966) and "Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence" (1969).

Despite his talent, Comencini was not in the top echelon of Italian cinema.

"I made too many different films for people to be able to recognise me at first glance," he once said. "(Federico) Fellini is a successful filmmaker: the name is identified with the product, it's like soap."

Born in 1916 at Salo, near the northern town of Brescia, Comencini studied in Paris and at the Milan school of architecture. He was a cinema critic before launching his career as a director in 1946.

Comencini retired from the cinema in 1989, but his daughters Cristina and Francesca picked up the baton.

Cristina Comencini's "La Bestia nel Cuore" (Don't Tell) won several awards at the 2005 Venice International Film Festival and was an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Then "A Casa Nostra" (Our Country) by Francesca Comencini won critical acclaim last year.

©AFP