Chains

After years of making mostly comedies and literary adaptations, Raffaello Matarazzo turned to melodrama with this intense tale of a tight-knit working-class family shattered by temptation. There’s a touch of noir in Chains, in which the saintly yet earthy Yvonne Sanson, as the devoted wife of a mechanic (Amedeo Nazzari), finds herself unwillingly drawn back to an ex-love who has turned to crime.

Film Info

  • Italy
  • 1949
  • 94 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • Italian

Available In

Collector's Set

Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo’s Runaway Melodramas

Eclipse 27: Raffaello Matarazzo

DVD Box Set

4 Discs

$47.96

Chains
Cast
Amedeo Nazzari
Gugliemo
Yvonne Sanson
Rosa
Aldo Nicodemi
Emilio
Teresa Franchini
Gugliemo’s mother
Gianfranco Magalotti
Tonino
Rosalia Rendazzo
Angela
Roberto Murolo
Singer
Aldo Silvani
Defense lawyer
Credits
Director
Raffaello Matarazzo
Producer
Goffredo Lombardo
Screenplay
Aldo De Benedetti
Screenplay
Nicola Manzari
Screenplay
Libero Bovio
Story
Libero Bovio
Story
Gaspare Di Majo
Cinematography
Mario Montuori
Art direction
Ottavio Scotti
Art direction
Gino Brosio
Editing
Mario Serandrei
Music
Gino Campase

Current

Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo’s Runaway Melodramas
Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo’s Runaway Melodramas
Chains: Bound for Glory Film history is replete with artists embraced by critics but misunderstood by the public. For Italian filmmaker Raffaello Matarazzo, it was the opposite. After working for almost two decades as a midlevel studio director of pi…

By Michael Koresky

The Extravagant Passions of Italian Maestro Raffaello Matarazzo
The Extravagant Passions of Italian Maestro Raffaello Matarazzo

Italian cinema of the 1940s and ’50s may be most associated with the legacy of neorealism, but the tearjerking melodramas of this critically underappreciated director dominated at the box office.