Paolo e Francesca (1950) User Reviews (2)

Doomed love.

[ItalianGerry · 6 December 2004]

(Contains some spoilers)

This film was modeled on the history-based story made famous in Canto V of Dante's "Inferno." Francesca da Polenta and Paolo Malatesta were from the rival warring cities of Ravenna and Rimini. As part of a larger political plan to end the hostilities, Francesca was married off to Gianciotto Malatesta, brother of Paolo, with whom in this film version the girl already had a passing acquaintance suggesting the beginnings of a romance.

Their marriage was by proxy (Paolo) and Francesca did not see her husband until later. Gianciotto was a brutal and physically deformed individual. Francesca despised the man, and she and Paolo, had secret trysts in the Malatesta castle. Apprised of his wife's passion for his brother, Gianciotto surprises the two and murders both. They had already made plans to "escape" via double suicide. In Dante's infernal aftermath, signaled here only by a few lines of poetry, the couple are condemned to spend an eternity together reminded of the tender love they had lost.

This film accentuates the melodrama inherent in the tale. It is not a particularly powerful rendition of the story, although it was much more involving than I had expected. Odile Versois does a creditable turn as the innocent girl longing for love and duped by fate. Armando Francioli looks striking enough for the role of Paolo, but there is something bland in his performance. Andrea Checchi pulls all the stops as the revolting Gianciotto, an incarnation of pure malevolence. Aldo Silvani as a Iago-like astrologer is pure venom.

The direction by veteran soaper Raffaello Matarazzo is serviceable but undistinguished. One could only wonder what a director of the stature of Luchino Visconti would have done with this potent material if he had chosen to make a film of it.

Francesca da Rimini without Tchaikovsky and with some passion wanting

[clanciai · 8/10 · 20 June 2021]

This is an interesting effort to make something on film of Dante's brief love story of Francesca da Rimini and her lover and brother-in-law, Paolo Malatesta. It is well made, carefully sticking to costumes and milieus of the high middle ages, and both are credible enough as lovers, although they certainly aren't any Romeo and Juliet. Insead of Friar Laurence you have here an infernal astrologer manipulating Mr Malatesta and his court for the sake of his own power, but nothing is shown of what might have come of all that. Mr Gianciotto Malatesta is also left at a loss when he sees what he has done and learns the truth, that his wife and his brother had actually planned to elope by suicide, the poison provided by the monstrous hypocrite. It is not one of Matarazzo's best films but interesting as an effort to make the famous love story, hardly more than an anecdote originally, on film. Cicognini's Pucciniesque music adds to the romantic operatic performance, but it certinly could have been made better, for example in colour and by a more empathetic director.