When Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief opened in New York, many heralded it as the finest realization of the Italian Neo-Realist style. Bosley Crowther in his review for The New York Times stated, “Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, The Bicycle Thief.” The story could not be simpler. Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) finally finds work in post-war Italy as a poster hanger, but when his bicycle is stolen (the one thing required for his work), he and his son desperately scour Rome’s streets and neighborhoods in search of it. Despite the plot’s simplicity and the rough, neo-documentary style, the film was meticulously planned. Crowd shoots were choreographed. The scene in which the bike is stolen was shot by six different cameras. The film’s non-professional actors were cast only after De Sica auditioned scores of people to find the right face and walk. At one point, David O. Selznick supposedly offered to finance the film if he could cast Cary Grant, but De Sica stayed true to his aesthetic. "It is not the actor who lends the character a face which, however versatile he maybe, is necessarily his own," De Sica explained, "but the character who reveals himself, sooner or later, in 'that' particular face and in no other…their ignorance is an advantage, not a handicap." In the end, the film unfolds with a simplicity and effortlessness that hides its carefully constructed reality.