Antonioni's first feature owes much to a film noir like The Postman Always Rings Twice, but already, in 1950 (ten years before L'Avventura brought him international recognition), he shifts our focus to his preoccupations-which might be James M. Cain's (or Tay Garnett's) without the melodrama. Antonioni's distanced camera and seeming dispassion are already in evidence, turning a torrid love story into a tale of free-floating anxiety, inevitable corruption and betrayal in postwar industrial society. Set in Milano, the story tells of a wealthy industrialist who hires a private eye to investigate his young wife Paola's past. The investigation turns up a former lover, Guido, and the possibility of both lovers' implication in the death of Guido's girlfriend. They renew their affair, but with her new status, Paola can no longer live on love alone; a plot is hatched to sacrifice the industrialist's life for his money.