elision10 Look, it's Rossellini in the Fifties, B&W, with Bergman, shot at all these great sites in Italy. So sure, on some level I'm going to enjoy it. But that doesn't mean I have to buy into its reputation as a great movie. The story centers on the relationship of an "English" couple. They've been married for eight years. They're unhappy. Their marriage is on its last legs. At the end of the movie, they get back together. So the movie has to be how whatever we see happen in it culminates in their reconciliation. And it utterly fails to do that. First, WHY are these two together at all? She's obviously not English. How did they get together? But more important, the husband, played by George Sanders, is SO unappealing, so cold, so wretched, that's it's impossible to see what attracted a romantic like the Bergman character to him. I get it that he's English, upper (or upper-middle) class, emotionally stunted from going to English public schools, etc. You don't expect him to insist on couples' counseling. (I love the Sanders line, when he wants to describe the essence of a couple he met, and settles on simply "talkative.") But Rossellini has got to give us SOMETHING to go on, something to show us that he has some humanity, or had at one point. Or show us in the film how he has changed, and why, because of his time in Italy. This is a guy who goes into a rage because his wife takes the car without asking him. But there's so little sign that he can be more than what we see. He has a short dalliance with a woman who tells him that she is going back to her old lover. And you get the feeling if she hadn't said no, he would still be with her. As for Bergman, her character is more sympathetic and interesting. But she looks frumpy -- why hire Bergman and then make her frumpy? -- she's self-pitying, and weak. She stirs some sympathy, but not much. At the end, in a last-second, not-believable change of heart, the husband says to his wife: "If I tell you I love you, do you promise not to use it against me?" Just what every woman longs to hear.

qeter Luckily they projected an old 35 mm copy to get the right feeling of looking at the past. This is not a very spectacular movie. It seems that the tourism promotion of Naples in 1954 sponsored part of the movie. There is a lot of advertising time for the area around Naples (Pompeij, Capri) in it. But from today's point of view these scenes are quite interesting. You see explanations how they uncovered the remains of Pompeij and wonderful statues of ancient times. Besides that we see a very believable struggle between man and woman in a late stage of their marriage. How first love is translated into a somehow different, but never-the-less, important feeling.

camarro130 Rosselini did everything he could to ruin Ingrid Bergman. This is another one of his miserable movies which is boring and unexciting about a middle-aged couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Why would you take a beautiful exciting women and make her a frump? And what did he do to George Sanders? A clever actor and wonderfully adept at delivering witty lines. All he does is flirt with women. The women he flirts with are more interesting than his wife. The usual European attraction for the morbid. Lots of skeletons and skulls to make you feel like life has no meaning and we're all going to die. Don't watch it unless you're studying what not to do if you want to make a really good film. The photography was good for the time and that's about all I can say good about it. I think his objective was to destroy their careers. I believe secretly (or maybe not so secretly) he was jealous and hated actors. It's no wonder their marriage didn't last. I gave it a 3 rating because I have seen worse and after all Bergman and Sanders were in it.

karendietz29 This is a film about relationships that is bereft of emotion. Bergman's character is self-centered, self-pitying,juvenile (while always physically luminescent); Saunders' is shallow, self-centered, aloof. There is not an iota of chemistry between the two; no believable relationship is portrayed, so their emotional estrangement rings hollow. The contrast between these annoying, entitled protagonists and an Italy ravaged by war, and it's impoverished people, is stark. After an entire film of emotional discordance, Bergman and Saunders are implausibly reunited at the last second. The only interesting element is the vivid scenes of Italy itself, and its ebullient, stalwart citizens.