Expert direction from Visconti, a great performance by Valli and pretty good work by Farley Granger. The beginning of the film, featuring an pro-nationalist "Verdi" riot, is wonderful.

I hope all Viscontis won't have this effect on me, where I'm wowed by the period detail, set design and camerawork, and bored by the characters and plot. I could not give the slightest shit about whether these two aristocrats will end up together.

So stuffy and dreary, in spite of how great the film looks (and the period detail is magnificent). It takes a tragedy about a woman being duped by a man and plays it up as this incredibly romantic drama with the music swelling at every oppurtunity it can find just to remind us how romantic it all is. Um...sorry, but I see nothing romantic about a woman being swindled like that. Also Farley Ginger isn't that good an actor and I totally didn't buy into a woman going that head over heels for him.

#251

262

A pretty good story, a bit too simple here and there but nicely dramatic. It's the directing I give a 100. It's no less than a directorial masterpiece; the Risorgimento period is brought to life spectacularly, the visual style is breathtakingly beautiful, with meticulous attention paid to every compositional and chromatic detail, to movement and to positioning. Between that and the understated melodrama, I will bet my left nut Fassbinder dug this movie.

# 276

249

The cinematography is okay and the period detail is excellent. But there wasn't much else about this film I liked. I hate the character of Livia. It's hard to believe in anyone going so ridiculously ga-ga over boring old Farley Granger. Of course Granger is dubbed, quite badly, in Italian for this movie, with plenty of overacting. But if you really want to see some overacting, look no further than Valli, who chews the scenery like it's made out of Twizzlers.

I liked it a lot, but couldn't help being a little underwhelmed. It's a beautiful picture but compared to Visconti's later films the visuals aren't quite as stunning. The love story and intrigue is well developed from start to end, but some tighter pacing would have helped. The patriotism angle is interesting but a bit underdeveloped. The performances are largely wonderful, though, and the flaws simply make it not quite great but still very good.