Tormento

From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, Italian cinema became internationally renowned for the neorealist films of directors such as Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Meanwhile, back home in Italy, the romantic melodramas of a less exalted director, Raffaelo Matarazzo, became huge box office hits. The popularity of his films coincided with the rise of the photo-romance magazines, which became all the rage in Italy after World War II, and were similar to comic books, using photographs instead of drawings, with dialogue written in comics-style balloons. Both Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren got their start in the photo-romances. In a sense, Matarazzo's films were live-action versions of those magazines. Matarazzo, who began his career as film critic, directed more than 40 motion pictures starting in 1932, but it was not until 1949 that he had a major popular success with Catene (Chains), which set the template for his melodramas, with outrageously exaggerated soap-opera plots and heightened emotions that were adored by working-class audiences. The winning formula, which included scripts by Aldo De Benedetti and starred Amedeo Nazzari and Greek-born Yvonne Sanson, continued with Tormento, released in 1950 just four months after Catene. Tormento is typical of the genre. Sanson, who looks like a zaftig Olivia de Havilland, plays Anna, who lives with her father and wicked stepmother, and is in love with decent, ambitious businessman Carlo, played by Nazzari, who is described by critic Dave Kehr as resembling "a dimwitted Errol Flynn." Anna's father dies, and the calamities begin to pile up, with Carlo in prison and Anna pregnant, and includes a jailhouse wedding complete with a fellow inmate singing "Ave Maria." More troubles follow, as Anna endures her daughter's illness, a lecherous boss, poverty, more bullying from the nasty stepmother and imprisonment in a home for "wayward girls." Matarazzo and his collaborators followed Tormento with more hits, including Nobody's Children (1952), He Who Is Without Sin (1952), Torna! (1954), and The White Angel (1955). But as the 1950s came to an end, so did their string of successful films. Matarazzo's final Nazzari-Sanson picture, Gloomy Autumn (1959), did not do well at the box office, and Matarazzo made only four more films before his death in 1966. Both stars continued to work, appearing in supporting roles into the 1970s. Nazzari's best role was the movie star in Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1957), which gave him the opportunity to spoof his matinee-idol image. He was rumored to be in line to play the Prince in Luchino Visconti's The Leopard (1963) but the role went to Burt Lancaster in order to secure American financing. As Sanson's career declined, she played small roles, including Stefania Sandrelli's mother in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1972). But neither ever equaled their glory days with Matarazzo, when they brought passion and conviction to implausibly eventful dramas beloved by Italian audiences of the 1950s. Director: Raffaelo Matarazzo Producer: Goffredo Lombardo, Raffaelo Matarazzo Screenplay: Aldo de Benedetti Cinematography: Tino Santoni Editor: Mario Serandrei Art Direction: Ottavio Scotti Music: Gino Campese Principal Cast: Amedeo Nazzari (Carlo Guarnieri), Yvonne Sanson (Anna Ferrari), Annibale Betrone (Gaetano Ferrari), Mario Ferrari (Bianchi, the lawyer), Teresa Franchini (Rosina), Tina Lattanzi (Matilde Ferrari), Aldo Nicodemi (Ruffini), Giuditta Rissoni (Madre Celeste), Vittorio Sanipoli (Rossi, Carlo's partner) Roberto Murolo (Enzo Sandri), Rosalia Randazzo (Pinuccia) 98 minutes by Margarita Landazuri