User Reviews

There is enough material here for a film of three hours, as the story is epic in constant turns of destiny, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Maria (Viveca Lindfors) is married to Pietro (Gustav Diessl) in Brazil, when a creditor threatens her, Pietro arrives just in time to save her from violation, and in the scuffle the dirty man is killed. Pietro gets away but is pronounced dead, Maria is prosecuted for being accessory to the murder but is acquitted for lack of evidence and starts a new life as an assistant in a laboratory researching cures for snake bites. Her principal there is also an Italian (Otello Toso), he falls in love with her and proposes to her, but she still feels tied to her lost husband and escapes, to start another job as a pianist at a night club. There Otello Toso finds her, there are some great emotional scenes in which Otello by accident gets bitten by one of his snakes, he tries one of his newly created serums hoping to survive, and in this crisis Maria comes to stand by him, he gets through the crisis, and they start living together. However, being both Italians and subject to the ordeals of war as foreigners in Brazil, they have to return to Europe, and on that same ship is Pietro working in the engine room. There is a fog, and there are confrontations, as the ship hits a mine, and the drama reaches a tremendous climax.

This was the first film Viveca Lindfors made after her famous performance in "Appassionata" with Georg Rydeberg, but she had already made films in Italy before then, anticipating Ingrid Bergman by more than five years. She was here at her loveliest, no wonder every man in the film falls in love with her, while her Hollywood career started much later.