Nobody's Children (1951) User Reviews

Nobody's Children

[MartinTeller · 7/10 · 30 December 2011]

This is pretty much the same as TORMENTO, only a little more so. More suffering, more vicious villains, more Catholic themes. Sanson and Nazzari both return, again as a couple torn apart by a manipulative mother with her own agenda, again with a newborn child who life hangs in the balance. Narrative nuance is pretty much tossed to the wolves, leaving just one sledgehammer tragedy after another. If you like your melodrama cranked up to the limit, this might be the film for you. I found it enjoyable just to see what happens next, but I can't say I was too invested in the characters.

NOBODY'S CHILDREN - 7/10

Before soap operas became a thing we had these as movies.

[jordondave-28085 · 5/10 · 4 April 2023]

(1951) Nobody's Children/ I figli di nessuno (In Italian with English subtitles) DRAMA

Co-written and directed by Raffaello Matarazzo adapting from the novel by Ruggero Rindi with manager of the quarry Guido Canali (Amedeo Nazzari) being manipulated and taken advantaged by his elderly mother as a result of him falling for a commoner, Addolorata (Yvonne Sanson) his mother does not approve of. It was a huge hit during it's time of release except that I liked the second one "The White Angel" even more. This was like, before soap opera's became a thing. Once the set up is there, you can almost predict what happened next.

Matarazzo's work is in its way inspired, and even inspiring

[philosopherjack · 23 October 2020]

At least as illustrated through his most readily available films, Raffaello Matarazzo's work appears strangely obsessive, with a feeling of perpetually readjusting and reexamining a set of recurring elements, as if in search of something canonical. To expand, within the few years from 1949 to 1952, he made four films with Yvonne Sanson and Amedeo Nazzari, all of which cast them as lovers separated by cruel misunderstandings, aided by the machinations of others (in two cases, essentially the same primary other, a self-interested countess played by Francoise Rosay); in two cases there's a child that one or both of them doesn't know is alive (also played by the same actor), and so on. The films are all seeped in tragic, all-consuming suffering, often manipulated by the inherent power of the wealthy and connected, albeit that the rich schemers ultimately fail to find inner peace; but they also reach for grand turnarounds and redemptions. The films aren't too stylistically striking, but they are in their way inspired, and even inspiring. Nobody's Children highlights something that's also present, but less prominently so, in the other Sanson/Nazzari films of that period, the exploitation of the worker, depicted here as marooned within a back-breaking, manifestly unsafe and underpaid mining environment, with heavy use of child labour. Nazzari plays the owner (in He Who is Without Sin he was just one of the labourers), whose reformist ways are undermined by his controlling mother and the vicious mine overseer; when he falls in love with the daughter of one of the workers, the two plot to separate them, with far-reaching effects. The ending fuses joy and calamitous loss in explicitly religious manner, while leaving an unusual volume of unresolved matters; Matarazzo would pick up the characters a few years later in astounding fashion in The White Angel, casting Sanson as a lookalike over whom Nazzari obsesses in Vertigo-like manner (and that's only getting started).

Drama at the marble quarries of Carrara including all the workers and a family

[clanciai · 10/10 · 12 September 2020]

The problem of this film is that it puts the quality of endurance of the audience at a sore trial. "One sledgehammer tragedy after another" is just the thing, and not everyone can survive that. However, let's stick to the main qualities of the film, that are as undeniable as the best neo-realistic classics of Visconti, Rossellini and de Sica, although there is not a trace of any good humour here. This is nothing to laugh at. It is life pushed to the extreme, and the frame of the drama is the conditions of the workers at the Carrara marble quarries, and almost everything happens around there. The qualities of the actors are also supreme, notably Francoise Rosay as the mother and Yvonne Sanson as the victim of some of the foulest intrigues ever perpetrated on film by the scoundrel slave-driver of the workers at the Carrara quarries. Amedeo Nazzari is the male lead and is perfectly correct as the count and does nothing wrong, while Enrico Olivieri steals all the affections as Bruno, the nun's son. The cinematography is also outstanding in documentary realism all the way, but the real thing here is the architecture of the story. It starts from nothing with a lovely romance and some typical family intrigue, but then slowly but consistently builds up to a towering drama, one foul play act leading to an avalanche of tragedies, as the criminal, as always, finds the only way to get away with his crime committing worse crimes and accelerating the force of the increasing landslide, with consequences, devastating more lives than one. There is also the problem of the obligation of silence at a Catholic confession: the priest knew but said nothing, because he was under the seal of confession, but in some cases that seal must be broken, if the conscience commands it. It's like a Greek or Shakespearean drama of destiny, where people are helpless against the force of circumstances that no one really can be held responsible for.

Ain't no fortunate son!

[dbdumonteil · 24 March 2015]

MANY SPOILERS "Catene" "Tormato" ,films starring the same principals,are melodramas,the whole melodrama and nothing but melodrama. In "I Figli Di Nessuno" ,Raffaello Nazzari appears as the Italian Douglas Sirk.

Now Douglas Sirk appears like some kind of melodrama revolutionary whereas directors such as Nazzari are dismissed as unhip;just compare the endings of "Figli" and "Imitation of life" (1959):both movies end with a funeral ,and dare it be said,Sirk is more reactionary than his Italian colleague:betraying the original novel by Fanny Hurst,he makes black servant Annie a woman who knows her place and whose only hope is to have a beautiful funeral!

"Figli"'s final scene is ,though melodramatic to a fault,extremely beautiful:"it's no sacrilege ,says the "white angel" ,it's for an angel who is already with You",as she throws the flowers on the coffin from her convent's window.

"figli" includes several stand out scenes :

-the old countess (Françoise Rosay ,in one of her nastiest parts ,the French should appreciate) dying when her daughter-in-law is stealing her testament.

-The meeting on the road between the son and the nun,near the well;it looks like a dreamlike sequence,and when the desperate father tells his dying son his mom is gone to heaven,we do believe for a short while, that it was a supernatural scene .

-The boy,working in a quarry,who takes a rebel stand and refuses his boss's (actually his father) charity ;in melodramas,children are often nice,gentle and sniveling:this brat is not ,he is proud and sides with the working men,sweating Under the sun ,for a starvation wage .

Of course there are many coincidences ,implausibilities,but not more than in Sirk's "magnificent obsession" ;besides the female lead ,Yvonne Samson has not that much time on the screen;which tends to show that Nazarro made the Young illegitimate son the real hero of the movie (check the title :"nobody's son").

When the movie was released ,the Office Catholique Du Cinema" blamed the priest for violating the seal of confession.

The ending must have sent the viewers tearing to an entire box of Kleenex;that's probably why the director felt compelled to film " white angel" ,a sequel,more far-fetched than "Figlio".

If you like melodramas ,this is a must.And I love Douglas Sirk too,mind you,but do not use his name and fame to put other directors down.Nazzaro is no genius,but he is skillful at creating good melodramas.

Illegitimate figli

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 28 April 2024]

Raffaello Matarazzo was a successful Italian filmmaker who had specialized in comedies during the 1930s and historical dramas during the 1940s. But with his hit film CATENE (CHAINS) in 1949, he began making a series of popular melodramas, the most successful ones pairing Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson.

Matarazzo's technique could be compared to Rossellini or DeSica, since he favored a more naturalistic approach in the postwar period. But unlike those neorealist auteurs, Matarazzo wasn't as focused on political or economic points; instead, he was more interested in depicting overheated passion and religious symbolism. He liked to elevate drama that would pull tears from viewers, even when his plots became convoluted.

The convoluted aspects, which are still be quite satisfying for the audience, play on coincidences and overwrought emotions. Typically, the conflicts involve class divisions. In I FIGLI DI NESSUNO (NOBODY'S CHILDREN), Amedeo Nazzari plays the owner of a quarry. His family, the Canalis, are headed by a ruthless matriarch (French actress Francoise Rosay, expanding her repertoire of international roles). Mama spends hours in bed barking orders.

One of mama's henchmen (Folco Lulli) visits to go over accounts. While he's there he tells mama that her son is having an affair with a quarry worker's daughter (Sanson). This is like a dagger in the heart. Since mama does not intend for her son to marry down, she does everything in her power to thwart the relationship. Never mind the fact that the couple is deeply and completely in love.

Mama works night and day to break them up. And she succeeds, except for one loose end. Sanson has become pregnant and gives birth to a child that is a short time later is thought to have died in a fire. After the "death" of the child, Sanson decides to become a nun much to Nazzari's displeasure.

Meanwhile the baby, which is still alive, and is now nobody's child, has been raised in an orphanage. The story advances, and we see Nazzari has married a more socially acceptable woman (Enrica Dyrell) and has a young daughter in this marriage. But he still thinks about Sanson, and mama still knows there is a grandson out there somewhere who's been denied part of the family heritage.

This leads into the second half of the story where that long-lost child, Bruno (Enric Olivieri) leaves the orphanage and comes to the quarry looking for clues about his parentage. Ironically, Olivieri bonds with Nazzari, neither one knowing they are son and father. Olivieri also has a scene in which he meets Sanson the nun, not knowing she's his mother. The film is full or great irony.

But instead of providing a happy resolution- since Sanson cannot turn back on her vows and leave the convent, and since Nazzari already has a wife and another child- tragedy escalates. Young Bruno (Olivieri) gets caught in the middle of dynamite being detonated at the quarry. Yes, Matarazzo is going there...and the boy so close to learning about his real family is fatally injured in a blast.

This sets us up for the huge scene at the end where Sanson and Nazzari have learned the boy now dying in the hospital, is their long lost son. You cannot help but cry watching this stuff. The performances are so pure and so affecting, despite the more operatic aspects of the plot, that you feel moved by these characters and weep for their terrible losses. On some level, it's kind of therapeutic in a very emotional way. And when NOBODY'S CHILDREN seems to have come full-circle, it really hasn't. Four years later, Matarazzo produced a sequel even more melodramatic and terrific.