Clara Calamai

Massimo Girotti

Dhia Cristiani

Elio Marcuzzo

Vittorio Duse

Michele Riccardini

Juan de Landa

Michele Sakara

Domenico Scala

Aldo Tonti

Giuseppe Rosati

Luchino Visconti

Alberto Moravia

Giuseppe De Santis

Mario Serandrei

Mario Alicata

Libero Solaroli

Antonio Pietrangeli

Vincenzo Genesi

Tommaso Barberini

Gianni Di Venanzo

Italo Tomassi

Gino Franzi

Arrigo Usigli

Gianni Puccini

Osvaldo Civirani

Camillo Pagani

Fernando Previtali

Maria De Matteis

Giovanna Valeri

James M. Cain

Crime

Drama

Romance

Ossessione

Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane (ICI)

Italy

CinemaSerf

So much of this adaptation of James Cain's "Postman Always Rings Twice" novel depends on it's stunningly intimate, almost adulatory, photography and on that score this really does not disappoint. "Giovanna" (Clara Calamai) is trapped in a loveless marriage with the older, drunken and thuggish "Giuseppe" (Juan de Landa) when the drifter "Gino" (Massimo Girotti) happens by. He's a jack of all trades and they can use him to help around the place in return for his bed and board. Quite quickly, though, she makes it clear she'd prefer it were her bed, and the pair are soon scheming an end to her loathsome predicament. It turns out that that's not so difficult to achieve, but what of events thereafter? The police, the insurance, the struggling business, oh - and the guilt. It's that latter element that gradually gnaws away at their relationship and it's this last hour or so that sees Visconti at his creative best. The highly structured but entirely natural look of the scenarios, the score and the increasingly frenetic dialogue raise the tension appreciably and though there is a tangible chemistry throughout from Calamai and Girotti, it's one that intensifies as an uncertain denouement beckons. You can just imagine the response it would have received in wartime Italy as it questions issues of faith and fidelity, crime and lust - indeed I'm quite surprised all the prints weren't burnt at the stake. Did this postman actually ring twice? I'm not sure he did, but I'm not sure that mattered to me in the end.

Italiano

Obsession