Due lettere anonime (1945)
Directed by Mario Camerini

Film Review

Filmed in the aftermath of the liberation of Italy by the Allies, Due lettere anonime (a.k.a. Two Anonymous Letters) is markedly different from the films that director Mario Camerini made before the war, crowdpleasing comedies such as Darò un milione (1937), many starring Italian heart-throb Vittorio De Sica.  A compelling war-time melodrama, the film has a stark neo-realist feel to it, as befits its grim subject matter.  Camerini felt impelled to make the film as a reaction to the shameless opportunism and collaboration that he had witnessed amongst his countrymen for the duration of the Nazi occupation of Rome.  A bitter indictment of one of the more sordid periods in modern Italian history, the film pulls no punches and offers an authentic and revealing account of Roman attitudes during the occupation, the courage of the partisans set against the self-serving duplicity of the collaborators.  Camerini brings a trenchant realism to the film and is extremely well-served by his three lead actors, Clara Calamai, Andrea Checchi and Otello Toso.  Checchi and Toso make an effective contrast as the heroic partisan Bruno and treacherous Tullio respectively, but it is Calamai who has the greatest impact, harrowingly convincing as the ordinary working woman who is driven by conscience to reject the easy life and support the Italian resistance, with all its attendant risks.  Due lettere anonime makes an effective companion-piece to Roberto Rossellini's  Roma, città aperta (1945), both gripping war-time dramas heralding the arrival of a dramatic sea change in Italian cinema.

Film Synopsis

Rome, 1943.  Returning home on leave after serving on the Russian front, Bruno has made up his mind to marry his girlfriend Gina.  Before he can propose to her he receives an anonymous letter which reveals that, when he was away, Gina was carrying on an affair with another man, Tullio, who runs a printing press.  Disgusted, Bruno rejects Gina and joins the partisans when the capital comes under Nazi control after the declaration of the September amnesty.  Gina moves in to a new apartment with Tullio but soon discovers that he is collaborating with the Nazis, betraying old friends for personal advancement.  Not long after Bruno is abducted, his partisans friends receive an unsigned letter demanding a ransom.  Gina realises that this letter was written by the same hand that had earlier disclosed her affair with Tullio...