Maria Schell

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean Marais

Marcella Rovena

Maria Zanoli

Elena Fancera

Lanfranco Ceccarelli

Angelo Galassi

Renato Terra

Corrado Pani

Dirk Sanders

Clara Calamai

Giorgio Albertazzi

Lys Assia

Romano Barbieri

Alberto Carloni

Dino D'Aquilio

Enzo Doria

Anna Filippini

Carla Foscari

Biagio Gambini

Ferdinando Gerra

Giorgio Listuzzi

Leonilde Montesi

Sandro Moretti

Mimmo Palmara

Winni Riva

Sandra Verani

Nino Rota

Luchino Visconti

Franco Cristaldi

Franco Ferrara

Suso Cecchi d'Amico

Guglielmo Colonna

Gabriele Palmieri

Mario Garbuglia

Eva Latini

Renato Jaboni

Lucio Orlandini

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Mario Serandrei

Piero Tosi

Alberto De Rossi

Pietro Notarianni

Mario Chiari

Enzo Eusepi

Silvano Ippoliti

Giuseppe Rotunno

Oscar Di Santo

Ruggero Mastroianni

Vittorio Trentino

Vanda Tuzzi

Paul Ronald

Renata Magnanti

Giuseppe Maggi

Nando Cicero

Mario Maggi

Italo Tomassi

Albino Cocco

Jean-Paul Guibert

Rinaldo Ricci

Drama

Romance

Le notti bianche

Vides Cinematografica

Cinematografica Associati (CI.AS.)

Intermondia Films

France

Italy

CinemaSerf

Marcello Mastroianni espies a young woman who is waiting, patiently, by a bridge. Initially he thinks she is one of the ladies of the night but as he passes he thinks he hears her crying. Distressed, she tries to flee from him but he manages to calm her down and they chat. They agree to meet next evening, same place same time - and that's the start of this charmingly simple drama that sees "Mario" and "Natalia" (Maria Schell) begin to confide in each other and cement a bond borne out of both of their emotional desires and frustrations. We also find out just why she waits each night. There are moments of intensity and joy as this story unfolds and we see a love burgeoning. Can it ever result in anything, though? The cold wintery evenings, the snow, the canals - they all add an eerie richness to two potent performances that show the vulnerabilities of their characters, their longings, disappointments and their hopes. Visconti also amiably incorporates a sense of family into the story well too. His being more around the relationship with the loudly omnipresent, but caring, landlady of his hotel (Marcella Rovena) and her's with her ageing grandmother - who rather comically uses a safety pin to adjoin their shirts so she cannot wander off! There is comedy here, but this film also has a sadness to it. Not a melancholic one, more an inevitability that somehow you just know is going to leave one of them quite possibly worse off in the end. Dostoevsky didn't much like "happy" endings - so don't go expecting one here, but there's a delicate chemistry to enjoy between Mastroianni and Schnell.

Italiano

Le Notti Bianche

Le notti bianche di Luchino Visconti - Trailer