Malinconico autunno

"I Figli Ai Nessuno" "Tormento" "Angelo Bianco" ...You do not change a winning team;so here they are again: Yvonne Sanson and Amadeo Nazarri ,directed by Rafaello Matarazzo.

Movie buffs do not go much for melodrama,except for Douglas Sirk,and in this case,they hail it as a miracle .However,there is not a gulf between the Italian artist and Detlef Sierck.People will laugh at the captain ,operating on the kid,with a little help from his crew ("you are all fathers aren't you?")....guided by a true doctor ...by radio ;if you are honest such a work as "magnificent obsession" has more implausibilities than "Malinconico Autunno".

Personally ,I consider Matarazzo the Italian Sirk.

The fifties were a hard time for unwed moms (check the headmaster's luminous remark);Luca idealizes the father he has never known ;he is a punching bag for his school mates who have strong dads who provide them with protection ;so when a captain ( in full regalia) comes to his rescue ,his dream comes true.People will say Matarazzo is not an "auteur" but the father's theme is recurrent in his filmography:in "Figlio Ai Nessuno" ,he even denies his audience a happy end.Unlike Spanish stuff such as Joselito Jimenez's weepies ,he does not bore his viewer stiff with religion ,millionaire fathers and waifs who find their place back in the high society .

There's an excellent chemistry between Amadeo Nazarri and his Young co-star and they almost out-shadow the female star,which is not so common in melodrama .(see also "Figlio Ai Nessuno")

And look at the last pictures:even the tormented dog has its day!

Raffaello Matarazzo, precursor of Visconti and Vittorio de Sica, was the specialist in Italy for undauntingly exposing deep human problems of justice and relationships and solving them, in one way or another, either by hopelessly drastic tragedy or by constructive indefatigable struggle. I will not divulge which of these two ways he chooses to follow here, but things really look seriously bad as the crisis is exacerbated by villainy and gunfire. The women as usual in Matarazzo's films are impressingly outstanding, especially Yvonne Sanson here much more mature than in her previous films with Matarazzo and Nazzari and a full blown woman of the same kind of beauty as Sofia Loren and Irene Papas, but as usual in Matarazzo's films, the children take the prize. The acting and direction of this film is quite astounding in high dramatic tension and excellence, and Matarazzo also succeeds well in building up this very critical drama to almost unendurable heights of insufferable conditions. The music is striking as well, and although a theme of much delicate heartbreaks, the film never falls to bathos of sentimentality. If Matarazzo is the Douglas Sirk of Italy, he is far ahead of Sirk in realism, credibility and humanism.