Mario Camerini remade his own 1933 film, this time casting Alida Valli in the lead role. The story involves an unwed mother and her precarious position in society. The film begins in an actual maternity ward where rows of infants are tended by nurses. Documentary-like footage of the babes being swaddled, bathed and powdered conveys an immediate sense of unfeeling regimentation. Orphaned and alone, Adriana (Valli), clutching her infant to her breast, is visited by an aristocratic woman who tells her not to expect any support from the errant father, a young Count. From here, I'll Love You Always backtracks along the weedy path of this distraught woman's life. Daughter of a now-deceased prostitute, she was raised in a heartless orphanage. Eventually, we arrive back at the present where a faint hope glimmers in the countenance of a shy, young accountant, Fabbrini. Camerini's treatment of Adriana's alleged transgressions-her child born out of wedlock-is handled with sympathy, unlike Hollywood films. She is not punished for her "moral" lapse, but rather is shown to be a victim of the upper classes. Given her virtue and self-sufficiency, she is accepted into Fabbrini's family and into her own class, among people who can appreciate and defend her. Stephen Harvey is co-organizer of Cinecittà: Fifty Years and assistant curator, Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art.