Ossessione ("Obsession") is a 1943 film from Italy, directed by Luchino Visconti.
Gino Costa, a drifter, wanders into a roadside cafe and gas station. The owner, Giuseppe, doesn't like the look of the scruffy fellow eating his food and throws him out on his ear. But Giuseppe's younger, good-looking wife Giovanna is instantly attracted to the handsome stranger, and by pretending that he didn't pay for his meal, gets her husband to bring Gino back.
Soon Gino and Giovanna are engaged in a passionate affair behind the back of clueless, oblivious Giuseppe. Giovanna confides in Gino that she can't stand her boorish husband and only married him because it was either that, or prostitute herself for food. Gino talks Giovanna into running away with him, but she is not interested in the life of a penniless drifter and goes back home before her husband even knew she was gone. Gino and Giovanna still can't give each other up, however, so their thoughts turn to murder.
This was the second adaptation of James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, following Pierre Chenal's The Last Turning but preceding the 1946 adaptation starring Lana Turner.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Giovanna know about the insurance policy? Did she rope Gino into a murder plot in order to commit Insurance Fraud? She tells Gino that she didn't, but before his death Giuseppe did mention something about a "paper" that made sure Giovanna would be "taken care of."
- Dies Wide Open: A more graphic example than Hollywood films of the day, as Giovanna dies with her eyes wide open and with her throat slashed.
- Downer Ending: Just after Giovanna and Gino have repaired their relationship, they crash the car and she's killed in a car accident, immediately followed by Gino being arrested for murder. In both the novel and the later American film, the wife and her lover get away with murdering the husband, only for the lover to be wrongly convicted of murdering the wife, who dies by accident. In this film however, the cops know Gino didn't kill Giovanna—they were there when the accident happened—but there turn out to be witnesses to Gino killing Giuseppe.
- The Drifter: Gino, an itinerant laborer who makes the mistake of stopping at a particular roadside inn.
- The Film of the Book: The Postman Always Rings Twice. This film had a checkered release history. It played at film festivals in Fascist Italy but was soon banned by Mussolini's government (mere weeks before Mussolini himself was overthrown and Fascist Italy ended). Meanwhile, with America and Italy being at war Visconti hadn't bothered to acquire the rights to the novel, and consequently the film wasn't shown in America until 1976.
- Hidden Depths: Giuseppe, a rude, braying oaf of a man, is also an excellent opera singer, as he shows in a nightclub.
- Jerkass: Giuseppe is rude and loud, and he complains nastily when his hot wife puts too much pepper in his dinner, and he thinks nothing of slapping her in the butt in public before braying about how they need to make a baby. One scene implies that he beats his wife but that isn't shown or confirmed.
- Karmic Death: Gino and Giovanna kill her husband and make it look like a car accident. The film ends with Giovanna being killed in a real car accident.
- Killed Offscreen: The film cuts away after Gino loads a drunk Giuseppe into the car, with the next scene showing the car in a heap at the bottom of an embankment as police and emergency responders mill around.
- Leg Focus: Gino first meets Giovanna when he enters the kitchen of the roadside inn and sees her on the table, dangling her legs.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Gino and Giovanna's plan, to make her husband's death look like he was killed when the car veered off the road. They are caught in the end when some workers contact the police and report that they saw the two lovers clambering back up the embankment while the car was still rolling.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Gino enters Giovanna's bedroom, the door closes, and the film cuts to the next scene.
- A Storm Is Coming: Giuseppe comments on the Heat Wave, saying "There will be a storm. It's so sultry." Soon after he's murdered.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Giuseppe, so fat he is nearly spherical, married to the significantly younger, attractive Giovanna.
- Widow's Weeds: The only time Giovanna puts on the black dress and veil is when she's trying to look convincing on the day she's collecting the insurance claim.
