Largely misunderstood, at best considered a little master of an Italian cinema in full revival after the war thanks to neo-realism, Raffaello Matarazzo is nevertheless the author of some sumptuous melodramas whose success was spectacular in post-fascist Italy. Matarazzo started writing film reviews for the Roman newspaper Il Tevere before re-editing scripts for the Italian film company Cines. His first films were comedies until he shifted to making melodramas. With Catene, produced by Titanus in 1949, he became the