A family man (Amadeo Nazzari) gets framed for murder and while he spends the next fourteen years in prison, his wife dies and his young daughter disappears. When he gets out he accidentally runs into his now-grownup girl (mistaking her for a prostitute) but their chances of living happily ever after are jeopardized by the girl's (Gianna Maria Canale) romantic problems and the self-serving heel (Vittorio Gassman) who framed him...
It's a great big pile of improbable hokum filmed in the then-popular "noir style" by genre director Riccardo Freda and another one "inspired by a true story". Luscious Gianna Maria Canale, a former "Miss Italy 1947" runner-up who lost to Lucia Bose, would go on to marry the director and become the reigning queen of Cinecetta peplum splendor. Gassman plays the same type of sleazeball he did in WHITE SLAVE TRADE and gets the same special billing ("with the participation of"). He actually makes a very hissable villain, an opportunity denied most Hollywood heartthrobs back then, the reason being that when they did play "against type" (like Tyrone Power in NIGHTMARE ALLEY), the public didn't care for it. Europe was different, however, and Vittorio's movies are a gas, man!
It's a great big pile of improbable hokum filmed in the then-popular "noir style" by genre director Riccardo Freda and another one "inspired by a true story". Luscious Gianna Maria Canale, a former "Miss Italy 1947" runner-up who lost to Lucia Bose, would go on to marry the director and become the reigning queen of Cinecetta peplum splendor. Gassman plays the same type of sleazeball he did in WHITE SLAVE TRADE and gets the same special billing ("with the participation of"). He actually makes a very hissable villain, an opportunity denied most Hollywood heartthrobs back then, the reason being that when they did play "against type" (like Tyrone Power in NIGHTMARE ALLEY), the public didn't care for it. Europe was different, however, and Vittorio's movies are a gas, man!