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Ossessione
Put a little murder in your marriage
1943
Review: February 3, 2009
Director: Luchino Visconti
Starring: Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Michele Riccardini, Elio Marcuzzo
Can’t hurt, but not required.
THE SETUP:
Italian version of The Postman Always Rings Twice directed by Visconti.
DISCUSSION:
So obviously you can’t get far in reading hard-boiled fiction without reading James M. Cain, one of the masters of the genre. And you can’t read much Cain without reading The Postman Always Rings Twice, which turns out to be one of those novels that is decent enough while you’re reading it, then somehow borrows into your imagination and just keeps getting deeper and richer. I watched the 1946 version of the film, with Lana Turner and John Garfield, which I found absolutely delightful, and was investigating the 70s remake when I saw that this is available—an Italian version directed by Visconti! So obviously that went straight to the top of the list.
This one opens with a truck stopping at a gas station and restaurant. A guy jumped in the back of the truck way back when, and they kick him out. He wanders into the restaurant, hears singing, and goes back into the kitchen. Once more the wife of the restaurant owner, Giovanna, is first introduced via her legs. The drifter, Gino, asks for some food, then picks up her pots and takes food directly out of them. There is something very effectively sexual about the way he digs his fingers into her food and puts it in his mouth. She remarks that he is “Built like a horse”—and I should mention that he is DAMN handsome—and she gives him some food. The husband shows up, kicks the him out as a thief, then realizes that he ate without paying. They soon reach an agreement that Gino will fix the truck in order to repay the meal. All of this makes a tiny bit more sense than in the novel and 1946 film, in which the drifter sees the wife, sees a “help wanted” sign, and suddenly decides to stay and take the job.
Gino snaps a piece of the truck engine out, and then the husband, Bregana, goes to town to pick it up, leaving his wife and Gino together. Soon he leaves the truck, and once more follow her singing. The camera follows him as he stalks through the house until he finds her, and—well, you can’t say Italian women don’t know how to strike a pose. Next thing we know, they have commingled their bodily fluids, and she is saying “Now you’ll never leave me, will you?” Uh, neediness, okay? Let’s check that. She tells a very affecting story of how she fell on hard times, and drifted into prostitution, and so she married the “old man,” although now his touch makes her want to scream. She seems to believe that she and Gino are now meant to be together, forever, and tells him “you must love me very much.” A nice touch is that we see the couple reflected in a mirror, which then swings shut to display Bregana’s hanging suits. One other subtle change this film makes, that works, is that here, Giovanna is not as old as Bregana, but is older than Gino, who is a certified young buck. This adjustment draws a slightly different triangle in terms of the dynamic between the three figures and what they want. In the novel and Lana Turner version, the two lovers are the same age.
So now the part where they try to keep their affair secret and Bregana is driving them both nuts. This movie has some clever ways to express that. One is that Giovanna is required to rub Bregana’s back and chest, which obviously physically repulses her. They eat at a table with nasty fly paper hanging down above the center of the table as—and I thought this was a brilliant touch—the wailing sound of cats in heat drifts in from outside. And at one point Giovanni calls Bregana an imbecile, only here it’s pronounced “eem-bi-chi-luh!”
SPOILERS > > >
So Gino realizes that this whole thing is going nowhere, and takes off. He meets a guy on the train, and soon befriends a woman who is a dancer, and they begin an affair. He has a few different jobs, including one as a carnival barker, and a few weeks pass and he runs into Bregana again. Since Gino’s life working odd jobs has sucked, he goes back. A diversion like this is in the novel, and the affair with the woman is in there separately, but it’s a little curious why Visconti chose to include this episode when he leaves out so many others. In this case, it leads to an impression that Gino is much less invested in Giovanna than she in him.
There’s an amusing scene as Bregana takes his wife and Gino to a sort of Italian Opera Karaoke, and sings a ludicrously over-the-top song, soaking up the perceived adulation. On the walk back, he tells Giovanna that he wants a baby, and this is the clincher. Giovanna and Gino never discuss what they’re going to do, they just hold each other and say “Right away.”
Well, they aren’t kidding. Next thing you know, Bregana is drunk and they’re going out for a ride. Gone is the first murder attempt, such an important part of the novel and Turner version. They go driving along the cliffs, and eventually stop, when Gino takes over the wheel. The screen fades, and when we come back, Gino is relating the tale of the accident, and the car is at the bottom of the hill. The couple think they’re doing fine, but before they leave, the superintendent lets them know that they’re under suspicion. After all, it does look a little funny that Giovanna had the time to grab her hat and purse before she was thrown from the car.
The film continues to divert from the novel. Gino is desperate to take Giovanna and go on the road, saying that the memory of Bregana, who he suddenly sees as a good, innocent man, haunts him everywhere he looks. He turns to drink! He’s coming apart! AND there’s a really annoying marching band parked right outside his window!
When Giovanna tells him that there just HAPPENED to be the little matter of this life insurance policy taken out a few days before Bregana died, Gino realizes he’s been a chump. He wants the hell away from Giovanna—but now she’s threatening to go to the police, and destroy herself in the process of destroying him! Can love’s flower bloom again?
< < < SPOILERS END
It diverted from the novel in several key ways, which is fine, if only the direction it went in weren’t so much less interesting. This movie makes Gino a bit more of an innocent, with considerably more moral sense, than he ever was in the novel, making the second half a story of his life ruined by guilt and sudden curdling of love into distrust. Fine, it works okay, but it’s just less interesting than the thick atmosphere of inescapable moral doom that pervades the second half of the novel. The leaving out of several important matters—such as the initial, failed murder attempt and skipping over the final irony of the novel become just so may opportunities lost. But the whole thing may have more resonance to a 40s Italian audience, perhaps, with the bringing forward of the mega-guilt, honor for a good if stupid man, and casting of the woman as a greedy mantrap.
Regardless, you won’t have many regrets if you were to watch it—and wouldn't have any regrets if it were 30 minutes shorter. It’s intelligently written and shot, with lots of rewarding details to pay attention to. It’s only in comparison to the novel and Lana Turner film that it falls short—and not THAT short, even so. Still, probably only of interest to Visconti fans and those looking to watch all version of this story.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you need to watch all Visconti or all versions of this story.
RELATED MOVIES:
The Postman Always Rings Twice is the 1946 Lana Turner/John Garfield version, and has both the sizzle and the steak.
The Postman Always Rings Twice with Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson makes a complete mess of the novel and, in addition, sucks. Avoid. No, I'm not kidding.
