The fog-drenched cobblestone streets of Trieste provide a suitably gloom-soaked backdrop to Mauro Bolognini’s atmospheric tale of class, passion, and obsessive love, based on a novel by acclaimed author (and James Joyce favorite) Italo Svevo, which follows the melancholy intellectual Emilio through a doomed love affair with a high-spirited flapper. Anthony Franciosa (playing against type) and Claudia Cardinale are the protagonists, with one entrapped by his own narcissism and propriety, the other using her sensuality as freedom. Blacklisted Hollywood actress Betsy Blair costars as Emilio’s spinster sister, whom he understands as poorly as he does his lover, but whose fate is far lonelier.

—Jason Sanders

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