Senso

A full-blown melodrama from Luchino Visconti about an Italian countess, trapped in a sexless marriage, falling in love with a dashing Austrian cavalry officer who is invading Italy. As usual with Visconti, there is a welter of baroque effects and an acute sense of history, as the countess betrays her country and her social class for the sake of passion. Visconti wanted Ingrid Bergman for the countess but Roberto Rossellini put his foot down and said she only worked for him. So Visconti went with Italian Alida Valli, from The Third Man, and he cast Farley Granger, from Strangers on a Train, as her lover. The decadent setting is Venice.