Without Pity

In Italy immediately after the war, Angela, a displaced woman, and Jerry Jackson, a Black American sergeant, meet and hold on to each other. Neither has anywhere to shelter: she falls into the hands of the black market and a prostitution ring, and he is confined within the narrow space the army and the society around it allow him. The film builds the relationship as a love story and then watches the world it stands in crush it, showing without softening what postwar poverty did to women. Alberto Lattuada directed, and the screenplay is his together with a young Federico Fellini and Tullio Pinelli. It was shot on location among the ruins of Livorno, and the language of neorealism sits beside melodrama. Carla Del Poggio plays Angela and John Kitzmiller plays Jerry, with Giulietta Masina in the cast.