Gino (Massimo Girotti), a listless wanderer, falls for the wife (Clara Calamai) of an older bar owner (Juan De Landa). When she won’t run off with him, the two murder the husband. But neither deal well with the guilt and begin to mistrust each other. A homosexual peddler and a prostitute offer Gino alternative life-paths, but he can’t escape his fate.
Made in 1943 and based on James M. Cain’s dark novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Ossessione must be Film Noir. And I suppose it is, though the Italian setting and language, as well as the direction by Luchino Visconti, whose style was already approaching the neo-realism he would become known for, leaves its classification in doubt. No matter. We’re back to that most basic of Noir plots, where the sexy femme fatale seduces the flawed man into committing murder. Except here, she’s less a femme fatale than a tired housekeeper.
For a movie entitled Ossessione there’s little obsession on screen. The character’s talk about it, but there is no heat. Gino must lust after Giovanna, the wife, since he mentions it repeatedly, but we never see it. As for Giovanna, she’s no siren. She’s oddly dull, wanting nothing more than to run a restaurant, and her only displays of passion are connected to her fear of not having a proper home. Ah, nothing spells excitement like hanging around talking about security. They are good looking people, but exhibit no sensuality, which makes their desperation hard to feel. Since they also aren’t multifaceted, deep, or even smart, they aren’t interesting or engaging.
The murder plot can’t even be described as a plan. They look at each other, decide to kill the husband, drive a bit, and then there’s a jump to after his death. Once that’s done, so is the plot. The Noir elements depart to be replace by ponderous melodrama.
Things pick up with the introduction of two characters who have little to do with the story. The first is Lo Spagnolo, a homosexual drifter who is the voice of the director. Fulfilling the role of an angel, he tries to talk Gino out of adultery and murder (and apparently into his bed). He’s enigmatic, perhaps because there are mysteries around him to examine, but more likely because he doesn’t make sense. The other is a kindly prostitute Gino meets in the park. She is considerably more erotic than Giovanna and shows Gino that there can be excitement in life without betrayal and corruption. I would have been interested in her tale, but she pops into the film and leaves again with little effect.
Ossessione was shot in fascist Italy during the war, but nothing in it is of that time. Perhaps the events are supposed to occur before Mussolini came to power. Whatever the setting, the movie did not go over well with government censers, though Mussolini himself had little problem with it. It was released only in substantially cut form and the negatives were destroyed. However, Visconti saved a nearly uncut print, and all current versions come from that. Until the ’70s, the movie could not be shown in much of the world because no one connected to it ever attained the rights to the source material, but the picture is now readily available.
Cain’s book has been filmed four other times: as the French Le Dernier Tournant (1939), twice in Hollywood with the novel’s title, the first in 1946 with John Garfield and Lana Turner and the second in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, and finally as Szenvedély (1998) in Hungary.