Assunta Spina

Like all the Grandes Dames ,La Magnani makes herself wait since she does not appear during the first fourteen minutes.For a movie which lasts about 75 minutes it's much!As soon as she is on the screen she mesmerizes the viewer.Even in an average film like this one,with a relatively mediocre screenplay ,La Magnani shines.

She's cast as a semi-whore the people around are always putting down (a lady says: "I do not want to speak ill of her but ....).Her presence in the church is considered a sacrilege (there's the same scene in another Magnani movie :"Volcano" ).All her lovers -when she meets a sincere young man who wants to marry her it's too late- are brutes or cowards .It looks like a blueprint for what will be fully achieved in Pasolini's masterful "Mamma Roma"

Without La Magnani,this film would be forgotten.