Le chevalier mystérieux

Director Riccardo Freda certainly covered a lot of ground and had a go at practically every genre, with markedly mixed results!

This film is indisputably one of his best and comes from his early 'historical costume drama' phase.

You certainly won't find this tale in the memoirs of that most extraordinary of beings Giacomo Casanova, as it is a purely fictional account of how he retrieves from Catherine the Great an incriminating letter that has been stolen by her agents from the Dogessa of Venice so as to be used as a political pawn. Rendering this great service to Venice will enable him to effect the release of his brother who has been wrongly accused of the theft. Casanova himself was of course a 'guest' of the Doge in the infamous Piombi before making his miraculous escape.

The Casanova here is the dashing Vittorio Gassman and I would have to say that apart from Ivan Mosjoukine, he is the most impressive I have seen. Gassman was not exactly renowned for his humility and he employs his innate arrogance here to great effect. He also brings bravura to the role and wears the costumes wonderfully.

The character here requires extreme cunning to achieve his task and calls to mind Casanova's own assertion that "the principle which forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth."

We are also treated here to some splendid specimens of womanhood in the shape of Gianna Maria Canale, a former Miss Florence and the future Signora Freda, María Mercado, second wife of Vittorio de Sica and Alessandra Mamis whose only film this appears to be. Historically Casanova encountered the redoubtable Catherine the Great when trying, unsuccessfully, to sell her a lottery scheme but here their relationship is far more interesting and the Empress is given a suitably 'game' interpretation by the voluptuous Yvonne Sanson.

Freda's assured direction, the full-blooded performances, superlative art direction/costume design of Vittorio Nino Novarese and a thrilling score by Alessandro Cicognini all contribute to a thoroughy entertaining and absorbing piece.

Venice loomed large in Casanova's life and the marvellous shot of Gassman striding across the Piazza San Marco provides a fitting finale.

If you can imagine a James Bond movie dolled up in sumptuous 18th-century garb - with moody black-and-white camerawork, Baroque direction and a witty script - you may get some idea of what a rich and rare treat awaits anyone who can track down this long-neglected Riccardo Freda gem. In the years after World War II - while most of the Italian film industry was drowning in dreary, no-budget Neo-Realist misery - Freda continued to whip up the sexy and stylish souffles that were his stock-in-trade for the best part of four decades. So why do critics write endless books about tedious Philistines like Rossellini and de Sica, but ignore the fact that Freda even existed? It just shows you what a deeply subjective business 'film history' can be.

In this particular epic, that dashing Venetian nobleman Giacomo Casanova (played with great brio by Vittorio Gassman) swings into action to track down an incriminating letter, which threatens to ruin the Doge's wife and sink the whole of the Serene Republic along with it. His quest takes him all the way across Europe, to the deliciously decadent court of Catherine the Great of Russia (Yvonne Sanson). On the way, he tangles with a sinister underground brotherhood, an alluring transvestite lady spy (Gianna Maria Canale) and the notorious nymphomaniac Empress herself. Throw in a few sword-fights, a lavish Imperial ball or two, a spectacular bear-hunt in the snow, a breakneck chase for the border on sleighs. There's even a grisly torture scene, to remind us that Freda finally left the swashbuckling genre to become (with films like I Vampiri and The Horrible Doctor Hichcock) the first great pioneer of Italian horror.

However trivial - or downright ridiculous - the plot may become, Freda shows a mastery of sheer cinematic style that puts most of the more highly-touted Italian directors to shame. Like Minnelli or Sirk, Mizoguchi or Ophuls, Visconti or Fellini, he is in love with the visual and sensuous possibilities of the camera itself. The breathtaking decor and costumes (by Vittorio Nino Novarese, who went on to dress the most elephantine of Hollywood epics) are as strong a dramatic presence as the actors themselves. That's no slight against the cast: Gassman was as great an actor as Marcello Mastroianni; Sanson and Canale are as strong as they are sensual, as gutsy as they are glamorous - a world away from the insipid sex objects that decorate most action movies!

Despite working in the most 'mindless' and populist of genres, Freda still managed to be one of the great aesthetes of cinema. A man - in the words of Gautier - 'for whom the visible world exists.' So WHY is his work not more 'visible'? Why is it not seen and studied in every repertory cinema and film faculty on earth? Objectively speaking, there is no single answer. Personally, I blame the Neo-Realists.

David Melville

Il Cavaliere Misterioso (The Mysterious Ryder) was directed by Italian writer-director Riccardo Freda who also took part in writing the screenplay just like he did for nearly all of his films.

Riccardo Freda first started as an actor in early 1930s, and later began collaborating in writing screenplays. His directorial debut was 1942 adventure film Don Cesare Di Barzan, which enjoyed a relative public success. Next he tried his hand in directing a couple of contemporary comedy dramas that challenged so popular in Italy at the time Neo-Realism, which Freda despised. As a consequence he decided to turn back to the historical adventure films. The result was big box office hit Aquila Nera, based on the novel by Russian 19th century poet and writer Alexander Pushkin. Next he made an adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, which was followed by this film Il Cavaliere Misterioso.

The film is in no way based on Casanova's memoirs, but only takes his character and uses him in a pure action-adventure realm of 18th century Italy and Russia. The actor, who quite suits his part here, is Vittorio Gassman in his first major role in the film. Prior to that he had appeared only in supporting roles in several films and also was known as a stage actor who appeared in Italian adaptation of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and as Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire.

The story is simple: Casanova's brother is imprisoned in 18th century Venice under false accusations and our hero is the only one who can or want to help him to get out. In order to do that he has to find and bring back a compromising letter that was recently stolen from an important government official and is on its way to Russia in order to be delivered to Catherine II the Great personally who is supposed to make its content public. Casanova embarks on a perilous journey to Russia following the letter's trail and striving for adventures that are undoubtedly awaiting him ahead.

Overall it's a decent 1940s Italian adventure comedy, with a simple but quite interesting story and some memorable visual moments. 7/10

This is another fine early effort by the man who would eventually be credited with belatedly introducing the horror genre into his country; like the just-viewed DON CESARE DI BAZAN (1942), it is an opulent costumer similarly showcasing an up-and-coming international star i.e. Vittorio Gassman (here billed with a double 'n'!). Incidentally, I was not aware this one dealt with the notorious Venetian womanizer Giacomo Casanova – though his exploits here involve at least as much action as romance; for the record, this famous historical figure is featured in at least four other titles currently in my unwatched pile!

In fact, the plot (written by Freda along with two notable future directors, namely Mario Monicelli and Steno) starts off with his brother being tortured in a dungeon (an image that predates the typical horror atmosphere) on account of a letter apparently compromising the wife of the current Doge; despite being barred from the city, Gassman determines to save his sibling and presents himself before the woman concerned offering to retrieve it for her. The danger-fraught adventure takes him first to Austria (where he manages to infiltrate the sect in possession of the incriminating document and intent on selling it to a foreign power) and, then, the Russian court of Catherine The Great (played by future tearjerking diva Yvonne Sanson) – the revelatory note's ultimate destination. Interestingly, Gassman (and, for that matter, the movie's producer Dino De Laurentiis) would return to the latter setting for the colourful star-studded epic TEMPEST (1958).

While one would have expected the film's rather generic title to be attributable to the hero, it actually refers to the person engaged to dispatch the all-important memo to Sanson: ostensibly a count, it emerges to be a woman (though how anyone in his right mind could mistake the shapely Gianna Maria Canale, Freda's long-standing partner, for a male is beyond me!) who, naturally, ends up seduced by Casanova – as does the Empress herself, by the way. Still, a young maid (Maria Mercader) in the aforementioned Austrian section is the one who apparently captures the protagonist's heart – whom he runs into again, and loses definitively to a gunshot, in the Russian steppes as he is fleeing Catherine's wrath after successfully accomplishing his mission. A final note: the movie was broadcast on late-night Italian TV as part of a Freda marathon but, since its programming started immediately after the screening of the excellent Canale peplum vehicle THEODORA, SLAVE EMPRESS (1954), I had to laboriously fast-forward through that entire title in order to get to the one under review!

Riccardo Freda is the master of the popular cinema ;although he broached French melodrama ("Le Due Orfanelle"; "Roger La Honte" ) , spy thrillers ("coplan" ) and even Shakespeare (an estimable " Giulietta e Romeo) ,his forte was always the epic costume drama,a genre he supported against Italian Neo -Realism ;after all there's room for everyone,and I guess that the Italian directors,were they intellectual ,are more tolerant than the French highbrows of the New Wavelet.

To begin a movie with a torture scene is rather sassy !To continue with a tour in the Venice prisons ("Piombi") makes you ask for more;it explains ,so to speak,why Casanova was able to escape from those sinister dungeons where you would sweat in Summer and freeze in Winter.

Freda knows only one tempo:accelerated,and in his movies,there's never a dull moment ;some compared his Casanova to a Bondesque spy :there are plenty of Casanova girls,including the director's wife ,Gianna Maria Canale,who would often epitomize the treacherous beauty when she grew older.Actually,Freda's Casanova is closer to Arsene Lupin (a womanizer too) ,and the episode of the safe seems borrowed from Maurice Leblanc's "813".The woman dressed up as a man is also featured in "Don Cesare Di Bazan" and in his brilliant remake " Le Sette Spade Del Vendicatore" ,Freda's masterpiece ,at least to my eyes .

Like Sherlock Holmes,Casanova had a brother who is in big trouble in Venice;if his Don Juan sibling does not bring back a compromising letter,he will be executed ;and he's only got one month;from Venice to Austria to Russia (where he meets the great Catherine),our hero (a young Vittorio Gassmann) will display charm and ruse to achieve his task.

If you like entertaining movies,which make you forget the trouble and the strife,this is a movie you should see.