i have merely perused The Professor and The Madman, instead settling for the 173m version of
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso -
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095765/reference
It would be an interesting read the "Reception" section of the Italian wikipedia page; the film is from 1988 but it bombed hard at the box office, only picking up 2 years later after multiple relaunches and heavy trimming, cutting 50 minutes of useless garbage.
The film is .. should be .. mostly the story of a young child in 1940s southern, rural Italy, who falls in love with the cinema. Salvatore Cascio is the child, and Philippe Noiret (in super-obvious dubbing) stars as his mentor.
This film sure has that charming quality that period Italian films have, portraying both youth and poverty as blessings.
Young Salvatore is 12-ish old boy in love with the cinema. He tries repeatedly to fall into the graces of elderly cinema projectionist Alfredo, with little success, until the time comes for Alfredo to take his middleschool exam at the ripe age of 50; he cannot read or write, and Salvator agrees to share his test answers with Alfredo if only he will let him become a projectionist.
This section of the film takes up most of the runtime. It's got quirky characters attending the cinema, Salvatore's missing dad who went to fight in Russia, a prudish parish priest who wants to censor every kiss out of the films, all that sort of stuff we Italians are so good at.
Then there's also the broader story of Salvatore grown up, both as a young man and later as a successful film director, both of which are pretty horrid, have a different tone from the rest of the film, and due to their protracted runtime, are extremely intrusive.
There's other films that use this annoying storytelling technique; The Legend of 1900, Once Upon A Time In America, etc, and generally to make it work they would only be short snippets at the beginning and ending of the film. Here, it's ... well, it's those dumb 50 minutes that were originally cut, resulting in a much better film.
I would still recommend "Cinema Paradiso" but in the theatrical, 123 minute version. It flows better, it focuses more on what's good and less on what's not as interesting, specifically the character of Salvatore as an adult. Supposedly, he resents his successful life and wants to go back to his youth, but there is very little development, very little meaningful dialogue, just images of an old guy moping around. Likewise, the young-man Salvatore is also far less interesting than boy-Salvatore is, and we are throwin in media res of his story, never setting up why we should care for this guy.
My vote: 123m version
7/10, 173m version 6/10