IL GRIDO

IL GRIDO/THE OUTCRY (1957). Directed by Michael Antonioni.

A dubbed but reasonably effective Steve Cochran plays Luigi, a worker in a small Italian city who wants to marry his lover Irma (Alida Valli) upon finding out that her husband has died, but discovers that she's fallen in love with another man. He takes off to forget her, encountering a number of women he treats even more insensitively than Irma treated him. These include his broken-hearted ex, who has mixed emotions about seeing him; a lady who runs a gas station; and a free spirit who seems borderline batty. Luigi is a stoic man who holds his pain all inside until it comes out in what we are presumably meant to see as an act of inescapable self-violence. No doubt the film is fraught with significance of a sort, but the end result – while it holds the attention – seems to be much ado about nothing. Cochran's performance isn't at all bad, but the film would have been better off with a more sensitive type who could at least register some of the character's inner torment. Some good performances, atmospheric photography, but this lacks the brilliance and emotional resonance of the best of Fellini and De Sica.

Verdict: **1/2.