User Reviews

Raffaello Matarazzo was 40 when he directed "Chains" in 1949. He'd been directing for 16 years, but this film is the one that really made his reputation, and it established Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson as the most popular teaming in Italian films, at least until Marcello and Sophia got together. I've seen three later Matarazzo melodramas (hes been called Italy's Douglas Sirk) and found "Chains" the least satisfying of the four.

The stars play a happily married couple with two children. One day Sanson's previous boyfriend (played by Aldo Nicodemi) turns up and threatens to show Nazzari her passionate love letters if she doesn't desert her family and go away with him. His campaign culminates when she visits his flat and tries yet again to persuade him to leave her alone. The ex is trying to kiss her when Nazzzari turns up, throws her out of the room and a fight ensues . We don't see how it develops, but Nicodemi gets shot with his own gun, and Nazzari goes on the run.

I'm not too bothered that by today's standards the hero is a MCP: he tells his wife business is a matter for men, and slaps his son on the face for being rude to mamma. L. P. Hartley got it right when he wrote "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." What spoiled this film for me are all the holes in the plot. Sanson and Nicodemi were parted when he went off to war, yet in 1949 she and Nazzari have a boy who's maybe 9: obviously the undying love she swore didn't last very long. She insists she and Nicodemi, though engaged, were never lovers, which given the passion in her letters I found hard to credit: still, why doesn't she just tell Nazzari that? It's inconceivable that someone as gorgeous as Sanson would never have had a boyfriend. When Nazzari escapes he gets into the US using someone else's passport. I know this was made long before terrorism was a threat, but would US immigration authorities ever have been that lax? The police come for him when he's working in Ohio: how did they know he'd entered illegally?

When he's sent back to Italy and faces trial his lawyer persuades Sanson to save him from life in prison by saying she had an affair with Nicodemi when he came back into her life. This leads the court to find Nazzari not guilty on the grounds of self-defence. Was it really true in Italy in 1949 that a crime of passion meant you'd acted in self-defence and got you off scot-free? Finally his wife tells her husband she'd lied in court. Everyone's calling her a tramp, but Nazzari swears he'll tell them what she'd done for him. Really? Surely that would lead to her going to prison for perjury and (assuming a re-trial was possible) him going away for many years.

When a film's plot is riddled with so many holes it's ruined for me (I hope all my spoilers haven't ruined it for you!) You can't blame Matarazzo, who wrote many films but not this one. The leads are handsome and attractive, and Matarazzo directs with his usual sincerity, though the fight scene is strangely low-key. I can thoroughly recommend the other three Matarazzos I've seen: "Melancholy Autumn," "Slave to Sin" and "Let Him Who is Without Sin..." (a theme emerges.)

This was the first pairing of heroic Italian heartthrob Amedeo Nazzari and beautiful leading lady Yvonne Sanson. Nazzari had already been been making hit films for over a decade in Italy; while Greek-born Sanson, who had worked as a model, was just getting started in the Italian film industry. They were such a popular duo with audiences that they went on to make a half dozen more films together for the same director (Raffaello Matarazzo). Subsequent efforts were just as successful. Off-screen, the two stars were romantically involved; though Nazzari would marry another Greek-born actress, while Sanson remained unwed.

At first you don't realize that Nazzari, sometimes known as the Italian Errol Flynn, was actually 42 years old when he made CATENE (CHAINS). He looks very youthful. Sanson was 24, and she looks older than her actual age. So if you put them next to each other on film, they seem to be about the same age (30s), but Nazzari was in reality 18 years older than Sanson.

In CATENE, they play a couple who've been married for at least a decade, since they have a son who looks and acts about ten; and they also have a young daughter. The children in this film are very natural in their portrayals. American child actors from this period tend to be a bit too precocious, always trying to be too cute. The daughter in this film is certainly a cutie, but she's not trying to act cute.

The boy has some very dramatic moments, especially during a group lunch scene where his parents are eating with other adults. He notices his mom (Sanson) holding hands under the table with a man (Aldo Nicodemi) doing business with the family. Realizing his mother may be cheating, he tries to stop her from visiting the man the next day. It leads to an emotional scene. Sanson has no choice but to visit Nicodemi, since she's being blackmailed over the details of an earlier relationship they had, which she never told husband Nazzari about.

While it takes a bit of time for Nazzari to see what's been going on under his nose, it doesn't take him long to act once he has all the facts. There is a very huge scene midway through the picture, where Nazzari goes to confront Nicodemi and finds Sanson in the guy's hotel room. He sends his wife out, there is a quarrel, a gun is involved, and it goes off. Nazzari has accidentally shot and killed the man, and now he goes on the lam.

Although Nazzari did the killing, it is Sanson who gets the brunt of the blame. Nazzari's mother (Teresa Franchini) becomes primary caregiver for the children, and at first she prevents Sanson from seeing the kids. Sanson is finally allowed into the house for a visit, which leads to plenty of grateful tears. Sanson does a lot of suffering in this story.

Meanwhile Nazzari has gone to the U. S. and ends up in Ohio with other expatriated Italians. Nazzari is still wanted for murder. The police in Ohio catch up to him and deport him to Italy. I found the scene with the Italian-American policeman very interesting. In order to ensure realism, they had to use an Italian actor who had some command of the English language, because a cop in Ohio would most likely speak English.

After Nazzari returns, the story becomes more of a legal melodrama. He goes on trial, and ultimately he is saved when his wife allows herself to be a martyr. She claims she was having an affair with the dead man, which isn't exactly true, so that Nazzari will be exonerated. A sympathetic jury will overlook his actions and consider what he did a crime of passion.

After the not-guilty verdict, the family is reunited. Sanson is allowed to come back home. There are more grateful tears, but somehow none of this seems too over-the-top. It does feel authentic, because what we have is a family that lives and feels things deeply. They are real in every sense of the word. They are bound by an unbreakable bond...by love...not by chains.