Ossessione (1977)

This Italian film is one I found in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, I obviously wouldn't have known about it otherwise, so I hoped for the best, directed by Luchino Visconti (Senso, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard). Basically Gino Costa (Massimo Girotti) is a young and handsome wandering tramp / drifter, he arrives by chance at a small roadside inn / restaurant and filling station, run by beautiful young Giovanna Bragana (Clara Calamai). Giovanna is in an unhappy marriage with the restaurant owner (Juan de Landa), a fat old man who she finds disgusting, she only married him for his money, and she is inside screaming when he touches her and desperate to get away. Gino initially leaves town, but unable to get Giovanna out of his mind he subsequently returns and they start a passionate affair together, she refuses to run away with him, but they conspire together to get rid of the husband. Gio and Giovanna work together and murder the husband, then attempt to live happily ever after, but Gino is haunted by guilt, and when the long arm of the law does come calling to disrupt the couple's lives, Gino is convicted of accidental death, despite ironically getting over the actual murder. Also starring Elio Marcuzzo as Giuseppe Tavolato - "The Spaniard", Dhia Cristiani as Anita and Vittorio Duse as the Lorry Driver. The story is based on the book The Postman Always Rings Twice, and is full of interesting working class characters and drab settings, but this film was apparently so controversial it was banned by censors of Benito Mussolini, and fascists burned the negative, however the director managed to save a print, it has been credited as creating the Italian cinema movement of neorealism, it's a worthwhile drama. Good!

A beautiful couple. Ambiguous love story. Fat husband and proletarian Prince Charming. In fact, Luchino Visconti mark. Precise, deep and delicate. A film without definition. Not impressive, not great. Only a meditation about desire, feelings and music as axis of a life. About an Italy from many others, a way and sense of life. Measure of love and its ordinary price. So, it is not adaptation of a novel and not biography of a murder. It is a dusty tale of a man for who shadows are more important than rules of society. Map of a small and insignificant world. Nothing new, nothing special. Just long chain of victims. And classic music as window to a minimum sense of days. An experience and a break after powerful stories of Hollywood.

Oh, those sneaky Italians. It's not the first time they based a movie on source material without the permission or knowledge of the, in this case, author of the novel. Of course this is not something that is typically Italian but got done quite a lot in the early days of cinema, mostly because they often thought they would be able to get away with it. James M. Cain's publishers managed to keep this movie off American screens until 1976 but nevertheless the movie itself has grown a bit into a well known classic.The movie is not as great to watch as the 1946 American version but it's a great movie nevertheless. This of course not in the least is due to the movie it's great strong story, that is an intriguing one and provides the movie with some great characters and realism. It follows the novel quite closely and is therefore mostly the same as other movie versions of its story, with of course as a difference that it got set in an Italian environment.Leave it up to the Italians to make a movie about life and the real people in it. These early drama's always have a very realistic feeling over it and are therefore also quite involving to watch. Unfortunately the movie lost some of its power toward the end, when the movie started to feel a bit overlong and dragging in parts. The movie could had easily ended 15 minutes earlier.Nevertheless, I don't really have much else negative to say about this movie. It's simply a greatly made one, based on some equally great and strong source material. Quite an impressive directorial debut for Luchino Visconti, who continued to direct some many more great and memorable Italian dramatic movies.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The Ruth Snyder - Judd Gray murder in 1927 inspired Ogden Nash to write a Broadway play called Machinal. More famously, it inspired James M. Cain to write two short novels which anyone who has actually reached the point where they are reading this review would be familiar with - Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Both became film noir classics of the 1940's, Double Indemnity being arguably the most perfect noir ever made. Some of the real-life elements of the Snyder-Gray story were captured by Cain - the old age and indifference of Albert Gray, Ruth's high sex drive, Ruth and Judd's passionate affair and complicity in the murder and that famous double indemnity insurance clause. Missing elements included the fact that the actual setting was a very urban Manhattan - Albert Snyder being a respected newspaper editor. The numerous incompetent and failed attempts were also ignored in order to cut to the chase.Cain's Double Indemnity was filmed perfectly by Billy Wilder - let's ignore Stanwyck's ridiculous wig as one of those interesting accidents of film lore! The Postman Always Rings Twice, however, was filmed thrice and Ossessione, an Italian version and Luchino Visconti's first film, was the first of three versions. Before commenting on it, I'll recommend the Lana Turner - John Garfield version of 1946 in its entirety and five minutes of the 1981 Jack Nicholson - Jessica Lange version for the great sex scene on the dining table.Ossessione is not as noirish as The Postman Always Rings Twice. It has a strong neo-realist look which makes it a great movie, but a lot of the essential noir elements are missing. It does not have low-key lighting and unconventional camera angles. The dialog is not hard-boiled and instead the film concentrates more on characterization. This is the longest version of the story and goes deeply into characterization. Its also a lot more sexual than the Lana Turner version. We have a very obvious adulterous relationship and Giovanna is very obviously a nymphomaniac. A new character is introduced into the story - La Spagnola - with very obvious homosexual overtones. There is also a small, but very well-played role for a dancer who moonlights as a prostitute.This is a far greater study of the working class than of crime. The audience really gets the feeling of poverty and grime. The drifter is a complete tramp, the wife is no Lana Turner and may even have been a prostitute before marriage. Her husband is an obscene capitalist - obese, rude and arrogant. I think the casting was brilliant for this film. My only beef is with the overlong running time. Everything is drawn out too long and it would have been more effective if it had been more economical. Nevertheless, fans of noir and realism will definitely like Ossessione, as I did.