Showing:
BBC TWO, Tuesday August 7, 12pm
Synopsis:
(1944) Stricken with amnesia, the wife of an Italian wine merchant abandons her husband and daughter and ends up in Florence as the mistress of jewel thief Nino Barucci. Her daughter tries to find her, but is kidnapped by Nino's sinister brother.
Read the full synopsis on BFI Screenonline
Director:
Arthur Crabtree
Cast:
- Phyllis Calvert (Maddalena Labardi/Rosanna)
- Stewart Granger (Nino Barucci)
- Patricia Roc (Angela Labardi)
- Peter Glenville (Sandro Barucci)
- John Stuart (Giuseppe Labardi)
Analysis:
Probably the most bizarre of all the costume melodramas that Gainsborough produced in the mid-1940s, Madonna of the Seven Moons abandons the usual British historical setting in favour of a highly stylised Florence, nominally set in the 1930s but bearing little resemblance to Mussolini's Italy or indeed anyone else's: nominally 'Italian' characters talk and behave as though they've stepped out of a Noël Coward play set in the Home Counties.
As with many other Gainsborough melodramas, the film contrasts two women. Despite being mother and daughter (disbelief needs suspending here, as only three years separated the actresses in real life), Maddalena (Phyllis Calvert) and Angela (Patricia Roc) come from completely different generations, and the straightlaced Maddalena is visibly shocked by Angela's clothes (or lack of them, at least by the standards of the time), her flirtatiousness, her overt sexuality and her independence, though seasoned Gainsborough watchers will find her very familiar.
Read the full analysis on BFI Screenonline
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