User Reviews

This film exists in two versions, as it was remade 13 years later by the same director on the same story, with the only difference that Constantinople was changed for Tunis. In this case, the remake is actually better and more interesting than the original, and when you watch the original you will understand why the director/writer found it necessary to make another better version. The later version is much more elaborate, and Alida Valli is substituted by a blonde Swede, who later married Sammy Davis Jr. Alida Valli is the better actress and makes more of the role, she really makes something of the very tragic character of Maria, while May Britt is just a blonde and lovely but no real character. The story is sensitive and gripping indeed, on a story like this you could make any number of great films, like "Camille" and "Anna Karenina", and you can understand why the director fell so much in love with the subject that he had to make it once more and better. So this film is actually mainly interesting as a preliminary study to the greater film of 1955 that was to follow.