Raffaello Matarazzo’s Runaway Melodramas
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, film critics, international festivalgoers, and other studious viewers were swept up by the tide of Italian neorealism. Meanwhile, mainstream Italian audiences were indulging in a different kind of cinema experience: the sensational, extravagant melodramas of director Raffaello Matarazzo. These haywire hits about splintered love affairs and broken homes, all starring mustachioed matinee idol Amedeo Nazzari and icon of feminine purity Yvonne Sanson, luxuriate in delirious plot twists and overheated religious symbolism. The films presented here, chronicles of men and women on long and serpentine roads to redemption, are each less restrained and more wildly fun than the last.
1. Chains - 1949
2. Tormento - 1950
3. He Who Is Without Sin ... - 1952
4. Nobody's Children - 1952
5. Torna! - 1954
6. The White Angel - 1955
These are gonna be a delight, when i hear old Italian films i always think of Fellini, these will give me some much needed context, these being what was REALLY popular INSIDE Italy during those times.
Viva Italia!!!