Larmes d'amour

When Criterion first announced an Eclipse set of titles from Raffaello Matarazzo, they described him as the Douglas Sirk of Italy. They know how to push product, and I picked up the set. I'd say Matarazzo is less Sirk and more Days of Our Lives. I only ever got around to watching one of them, Chains (1949), and, while it wasn't terrible, it wasn't any good, either. Torna! isn't included in that set, but it's on Hulu. It's easy to see why. This is a pretty awful little film, just a completely uninteresting melodrama. It requires its lead character (played by Matarazzo regular Amedeo Nazzari) to be a complete idiot. He straight up believes it when a disreputable character (Franco Fabrizi), whom he knows burns a candle for his wife (Yvonne Sanson), claims they had an affair. There is one interesting element that is introduced late into the film that almost makes it worth watching (the couple's daughter is kidnapped by a crazy woman after she's almost killed in a landslide), but the rest of it's so dull it's mostly a waste of time.

This is certainly not one of Matarazzo's best films, but it is not entirely without some interesting credits. As a family drama of jealousy running amuck, you can actually find some distant relationship between the villain here, the cousin Giacomo, and the Iago who relentlessly tortured the poor Othello to more than just despair. Amadeo Nazzari is certainly no Othello, but he is equally blinded by his jealousy and is almost driven to the same extreme despair. It's a melodrama and rather conventional as such, until there is some great operatic drama in the end, when a mad woman enters the stage and brings some drastic changes to the plot, including of course a storm with earthquakes and other scenic effects, to augment the highstrung extremism of the drama. There shoud maybe be a schmalz warning to this film, but the schmalz melodrama goes over all tops in constantly making things worse for everyone, so the operatic drama takes over from the sordid domestic family business argument and turns it after all to a film, not one of Matarazzos' best, but it could have been worse.

This is melodrama,the whole melodrama ,nothing but melodrama starring the king ,Amedeo Nazzari and the queen,Yvonne Sanson ,of the genre ;to compare the Italian melo to Douglas Sirk is absurd :his is the ironical ending ,the false happy end and women are not poor victims of fate (in "imitation of life" the heroine favors her career over her love affair; in "written on the wind,"she reigns over the black oil kingdom; in "all that heaven allows" , she turns back from a hypocrit society and selfish offsprings)

Here the mom suffers suffers suffers , falling into the hand of a former cynical suitor (the role of the villain was tailor made for Franco fabrizzi), who trashes her, and she's not able to react to events she endures the most terrible humiliations. All she has to do is cry.

But what fate lies in store for daddy is not better: himself an illegimate child (in the first scenes, his cousin's false friendship speaks volumes about that) , the jealous relative makes him believe he did not father her adorable little girl .And in the end ,all he has to do is cry too....

It's melodrama through and through , if you like it ,like me, you'll enjoy .If not,pass it up.