The straightforward narrative charts the chaos unleashed when Stefano decides to move to Canada to pursue work and embarks on a long-distance engagement to Maria. However, their plans are thrown into upheaval when Maria's sister, Lisette, is seduced and left pregnant by an upper class suitor. Soon Maria embarks on twelve years of dramatic trials including the death of her mother and imprisonment, all leading to a final destiny with her beloved.
The central role of Maria was played by Greek-born actress Yvonne Sanson, who also appeared in Alberto Lattuada's acclaimed The Overcoat the same year and would continue working for decades in films ranging from The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) to Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970).
Matarazzo co-wrote this film alongside Aldo De Benedetti, a Jewish writer who had only recently been allowed to take credit for his screenplays after the downfall of Mussolini. A highly productive writer, De Benedetti had just collaborated with Matarazzo on the tragic romance Nobody's Children (1951), also starring Sanson in a long-suffering role that suited her performing style. In fact, Sanson had become Matarazzo's muse of sorts by 1952 along with her leading man here, Amedeo Nazzari, with whom she also made the films Chains (1949) and Tormento (1950). Their pairing would prove so successful they would team up again for Matarazzo's Torna! (1954), The White Angel (1955) and Malinconico Autunno (1958) and other productions including Il mondo dei miracoli (1959) and The Shortest Day (1963).
A notable actor in his own right, the imposing Amedeo Nazzari had been acting since the mid-1930s and would break through to international audiences as one of the men in the title character's life in Fellini's The Nights of Cabiria (1957). He later became a fixture in crime films, most notably The Sicilian Clan (1969) and The Valachi Papers (1972), before his death in 1979.
1952 proved to be a fairly low key year in Italian cinema, but it did yield some notable highlights with Federico Fellini offering one of his key early works courtesy of The White Sheik and Vittorio De Sica tearing audiences apart with one of his most affecting films, Umberto D.. On top of that Jean Renoir made one of his most opulent Italian productions with The Golden Coach, and Roberto Rossellini was in the midst of his controversial Ingrid Bergman trilogy with Europa '51. However, as the power of this dramatic film still proves, Italian cinema is still a treasure trove for English-speaking viewers who have yet to come close to discovering all of its rewards.
By Nathaniel Thompson
