3/10
Ridiculous Melodrama
28 July 2012
I only voted this film 3/10.I agreed with James Hitchcock's above user review which is accurate and to the point.I suppose (unlike today) if you had survived WW11 in 1945 you did not have much choice when going to the cinema for some needed light relief.This film is supposedly set in Florence/Italy yet it is a place where everyone speaks perfect English and as another user humorously put it in their comments, sound as if they are all at the Hunt Ball in Cheltenham!Not a word of "Parliamo Italiano" was heard throughout even by the "peasant locals".Most farcical casting was the mother - Phyllis Calvert who looked and was the same age as her grown daughter - Patricia Roc (a point made by other reviewers).

Yet again we have a claustrophobically studio bound set with no relief of exterior shots and where the whole of Florence seems to be traversed in a 50 sq.yard of studio area and where characters suddenly appear in 5mins from one scene to another!A typical example was when Stewart Granger, in a comical fiesta outfit, appeared in the same bedroom as Phyllis Calvert (whose character had just died).Who let him into the villa? - I did not see how he gained entry!

Normally I enjoy the Gainsborough melodramas as long as they have some credulity, e.g. "Love Story" (1944), "The Man in Grey" (1943) and of course "The Wicked Lady" (1945) but this film was one of Gainsborough's duds, war or no war.The screenwriter/producer in my opinion have a lot to answer for producing this travesty.
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