Chains (1950)

Original title

Catene

Directed by

Raffaello Matarazzo

Genre

drama film, melodrama

Country

Italy

Runtime

1h 26m

Rated

T

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 28 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A married woman is blackmailed by a former lover. Her husband becomes entangled in a violent conflict that threatens to destroy their family.

tensemelodramaticemotionalold-fashionedsoapysentimentalintensegripping

What happens

Catene (internationally released as Chains) is a 1949 Italian melodrama film directed by Raffaello Matarazzo. It had an impressive commercial success, being seen by 6 million people, one in eight Italians of the time, and was followed by a series of six other successful films directed by Matarazzo and featuring the couple Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson. The film was remade in 1974. The film's sets were designed by the art director Ottavio Scotti. The film was featured in Cinema Paradiso (1988). In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978." Maligned by critics because it did not conform to precepts of neorealism, this did not prevent its unexpected box office success. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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