Il Cavaliere Misterioso (The Mysterious Ryder) was directed by Italian writer-director Riccardo Freda who also took part in writing the screenplay just like he did for nearly all of his films.
Riccardo Freda first started as an actor in early 1930s, and later began collaborating in writing screenplays. His directorial debut was 1942 adventure film Don Cesare Di Barzan, which enjoyed a relative public success. Next he tried his hand in directing a couple of contemporary comedy dramas that challenged so popular in Italy at the time Neo-Realism, which Freda despised. As a consequence he decided to turn back to the historical adventure films. The result was big box office hit Aquila Nera, based on the novel by Russian 19th century poet and writer Alexander Pushkin. Next he made an adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, which was followed by this film Il Cavaliere Misterioso.
The film is in no way based on Casanova's memoirs, but only takes his character and uses him in a pure action-adventure realm of 18th century Italy and Russia. The actor, who quite suits his part here, is Vittorio Gassman in his first major role in the film. Prior to that he had appeared only in supporting roles in several films and also was known as a stage actor who appeared in Italian adaptation of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and as Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire.
The story is simple: Casanova's brother is imprisoned in 18th century Venice under false accusations and our hero is the only one who can or want to help him to get out. In order to do that he has to find and bring back a compromising letter that was recently stolen from an important government official and is on its way to Russia in order to be delivered to Catherine II the Great personally who is supposed to make its content public. Casanova embarks on a perilous journey to Russia following the letter's trail and striving for adventures that are undoubtedly awaiting him ahead.
Overall it's a decent 1940s Italian adventure comedy, with a simple but quite interesting story and some memorable visual moments. 7/10
