La ragazza della salina

The love story here is between Isabelle Corey and Marcello Mastroianni, and they are both excellent. At first you would have preferred Sofia Loren in her part, but Isabelle Corey is just as good especially in her fits of rage, and Marcello frequently gives her good reasons for that, while he just as often has to rescue her from the sea, when she gets caught in a storm or when she jumps in it herself. There are other dramas also, Vida is pregnant while the father refuses to take any responsibility with fatal consequences, the scenes with the fishermen are all excellent when they get stirred to some action because of some crisis, which makes them all stick together to save the situation. The village is somewhere along the northern Adriatic, some scenes are reminiscent of "Riso amaro", but this is probably further north of Rimini. The colours are splendid, and so is the music by Bert Grund.