Obsession

This film is stolen. Visconti adapted James M. Cain's 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice without permission; the rights were never obtained. The consequence was severe: it could not be shown in America until 1976, because Cain's publisher Alfred A. Knopf kept it off the screens. The second problem was in Italy. Fascist censors suppressed it immediately and Mussolini ordered the negative destroyed. The only reason the film exists today is that Visconti kept a print of his own. One of the censors' objections was a character who does not appear in Cain's novel at all: a gay, communist artist. His relationship with the drifter is never stated in the film, and never hidden either. A drifter named Gino arrives at a roadside garage and restaurant, and he and the owner's young wife Giovanna plan to kill the husband. Massimo Girotti and Clara Calamai star. The film is generally treated as the beginning of Italian neorealism, and it was Visconti's first feature. Who it is for: viewers who want to know where neorealism came from and what was done against the official cinema of wartime Italy. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clean print. The surviving material is damaged in places and the sound quality is poor.