[Pietro] Germi’s first colour film… brought together several directors, each contributing an episode: Glauco Pellegrini, Antonio Pietrangeli, Mario Chiari – who was also the film’s set designer – and Roberto Rossellini. This film represents the only instance of Germi’s participation in a collective project. The episode directed by Germi appears to borrow its setting from minor neorealism works (such as Bread, Love and Dreams), featuring two young lovers, uneducated peasants, against the backdrop of a small town in Abruzzo during the final years of World War I… The most striking moment of Germi’s episode is probably the appearance of a Zeppelin sailing through the night sky, captivating and terrifying the community as if it were a biblical monster. This scene, with its fantastical lighting, evokes the imagery typical of Fellini. […] Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this episode is the direct comparison with Rossellini. [For Rossellini] life is a delicate, shapeless spectacle, becoming more exciting the more it is broken down by blind, devastating randomness. For [Germi] life is primarily a conflict between a legitimate, often moving aspiration and its denial by reality, between an obsessive sense of its dignity and its irreversible annihilation by the world.

Mario Sesti, Tutto il cinema di Pietro Germi, Baldini&Castoldi, Milan 1997

Presented at the Venice International Film Festival in 1951, it received the award as the Best Italian Film – a somewhat invented, ad hoc prize. This was insignificant for critics of the time, who almost unanimously panned the film. Since then it has garnered little attention in the studies about [Pietro Germi]…
One of the reasons the film remained obscure is perhaps due to the fact that the four male actors were, and still are, almost unknown to the general public.
Renato Baldini plays Paolo Leandri, a successful former footballer crippled by an accident. Fausto Tozzi portrays Luigi Girosi, an unemployed man who lives in a tenement on the outskirts. Paul Muller is Guido Marchi, an unsuccessful painter. Enzo Maggio Jr. plays Alberto Tosi, a kid from a good family but who keeps bad company. None of them have the status of heroes; on the contrary, all of them are “straw men”, destined from the beginning to fail in their attempt to get rich easily by stealing the stadium’s proceeds (anticipations of these weak men in Germi’s work can be seen in The Testimony and Gioventù perduta). We are far from the heroic figures that Germi had sculpted up until then (In nome della legge and The Path of Hope), and after (The Bandit of Tacca del Lupo).
Unlike the men, the actresses possess greater strength and star power. Gina Lollobrigida plays Daniela, Paolo’s ex-lover. He seeks refuge with her, hoping to rekindle their relationship now that he has become wealthy, but she betrays him and has him arrested. Cosetta Greco portrays Lina, Luigi’s wife, who, frustrated by her husband’s inaction, takes charge and urges him to leave the city with their young daughter Sandrina […]. Tamara Lees is the high-society woman whom Guido wants to paint, captivated by her beauty. Emma Baron plays Alberto’s mother, who persuades him to come back into the house when, at the film’s climax, he stands on the building’s ledge, ready to commit suicide.
It seems clear to me that the choice of actors and actresses is consistent with Germi’s intention of contrasting the weakness of the former with the strength of the latter. And that’s not all. The film is sprinkled with minor characters of intense characterisation – faces that appear for only a few minutes but leave a lasting impression (for instance, the smugglers who frame Guido and then strangle him). These vivid minor roles almost seem designed to further diminish the lacklustre presence of the four protagonists.

Adriano Aprà, Un film sottovalutato: “La città si difende”, in Il cinema di Pietro Germi, edited by Luca Malavasi and Emiliano Morreale, Edizioni di Bianco e Nero/Edizioni Sabinæ, Rome 2016