Senza pietà

A rare film noir w/an African American lead, John Kitzmiller, from 1948. Kitzmiller is a GI in Italy who comes in contact w/a travelling woman, Carla Del Poggio, & they hit it off as they spend the night hanging out but Del Poggio has ties to some criminal elements who when they get wind of who Kitzmiller is decide to jump him as he's transporting goods in a truck. The military, assuming he had something to do w/the crime, put Kitzmiller in jail while Del Poggio tries to curry favor w/the head crook to help him out. Kitzmiller escapes from jail hoping to reach Del Poggio but as the dictum of film noir dictates, only bad comes from trying to do something good. Raw & rough w/its edges unshaved, the film pulls the viewer along for this uneasy ride which if you watch enough of these things, you can see the ending from a mile off & we're all the better for it.

"Without Pity" is an unusual film because it's really a family affair. Not only did the director, Alberto Lattuada direct his wife, Carla Del Poggio, in the leading role, but the film's writer, Federico Fellini, and one of the supporting actresses, Giulietta Masina, were also married! This is very unusual to say the least.

This film stars John Kitzmiller as an American soldier who falls in love with an Italian. This hit close to home, as Kitzmiller (famous for his role in "Dr. No") was an American soldier who stayed in Italy at the end of the war because he fell for and married an Italian woman. In the case of this film, Jerry (Kitzmiller) is nearly killed when the film begins. However, Angela (Del Poggio) takes pity on him and helps to save his life. Later, they are reunited and they begin dating and their relationship is quite touching. However, he also feels a real sense of compassion for her because without his help, she's destined for a life of poverty, prostitution and desperation. But when Jerry gets arrested, Algela's life seems on the downward spiral. What's next? See this film for yourself.

It is interesting that Giulietta Masina played as prostitute in this film, as she later played one in her famous film "Nights of Cabiria". Whether she made a habit of playing these sorts of roles, I have no idea.

I noticed that some refer to this as a Neo-realist film. This isn't exactly the case. While like a Neo-realist film it is filmed in a natural setting outside of the studio (because they'd been mostly destroyed during the war), the actors were professional actors--having already appeared in other films. So, it's sort of a Modified Neo- realist film--a hybrid of traditional and post-war styles.

So, after all this, is it worth your time? Yes. The film is quite good and very touching. However, if you want a feel good film or are depressed, do not watch the film. Despite nice performances, an engaging script and nice direction, it sure is a downer.

If this movie is at all well remembered or occasionally revived, it is not because of the director or stars. It is because one of its writers and assistant directors was Federico Fellini. Given his later success and directorial vehicles, it is sometimes forgotten that he rose to prominence as a writer of Italian neo-realism movies.

These movies were acclaimed for their efforts to show real people with real problems. In large part they were a response to much of the production facilities in Italy being destroyed in the war and money being in very short supply for film production after the war. If the only setting you have for your movie is the ruined street or the impoverished countryside, you can't ignore that reality in the script.

Director Alberto Lattuada, who had more of a career than promoting Fellini to co-director on VARIETY LIGHTS, directs very competently. The story might have played in Italy in 1948 as the story of a woman reduced to prostitution and her American GI lover, but the production people decided to make her lover Black, for shock value in the American market. Carla del Poggia as the woman overwhelmed by events, is excellent when contrasted with the cynicism everyone else in Italy seems to show. That gives this movie an upbeat, neo-realist message: things may be bad, but good people can find triumph in tragedy.

A sombre account of a black G.I. attempting to desert in the aftermath of the Italian campaign and his involvement with a local girl, his recapture and second escape, while she has been coerced into prostitution by a gang of traffickers in goods and people, and their attempts to escape together once united.

This only really came to life for me when the doomed couple were on the screen. John Kitzmiller does not come over as an experienced actor, yet this has the effect of making his scenes all the more poignant. Carla Del Poggio is good as his would-be lover. The evils it highlights are with us still very much today. The assertion by another reviewer that the film was banned in the UK is incorrect, along with the implication that the different backgrounds of the leading characters could be a cause of such a ban. In fact it was passed in May 1950 with an 'A' certificate, after two or three minutes of cuts, giving it a running time of ninety-one minutes, which I surmise is the version on the current R2 DVD.

I saw this film 30 years or more at a university screening. It's probably never been released on videotape and may never be on DVD. I remember it as an affecting drama of a relationship/affair between an Italian girl and an afro-American GI (Kitzmiller). Both characters are sympathetic, with the Italian girl eventual drawn into prostitution by the difficult conditions of a receding World War II. Yet it is those conditions, with the Americans now an occuppying force in Italy, that bring the two together in a way probably impossible but for war. This film could be, I suppose, "neo-realist," and would be nice to "revisit" again to confirm my initial good impression of it.