Evening star., 1951-08-16

NU PICIIllSC COO1Q NC oOu1lQCI
are several which invite argumel
treatment of the films material,
details of the women'S plight att
the expense of the overall tragedy.
This is the obvious temptation in
any drama dealing with masses
of women in distress and the in
ability to resist it weakenS the
case which might have been made
by women Without Names"
The film. made in Italy. has an
excellent cast headed by Valen-
tina Cortesa, Francoise Rosay, ST.
none Simon, Gina Falkenberg
and many others of like stature.
They speak virtual multitude of
languages, often to good dramatic
purpose but more often to stress
tasteless case history that needs
no more than to be merely brushed
IN.
There is a surface of realism
In the new film at the Playhouse.
It was shot at Farfa Sabina and
Bari prisons in Italy, landscapes
of misery alive with the sick and
sordid limitations of women with
out documents" and with no
place to go.
There were ways to get out of
such infernos as these after the
war. but they were remote and
woefully unpretty in a world pre-
tending to be civilized. How these
ways were used is pictured in a
series of parallel stories which
never fit together in the overall
pattern implied in Geza Hero
zeg's screenplay, directed by Geza
Radvanyi.
The tragic impact simply is |
not there when Women Without
Names" comes to an end. One is |
left with q series of incidental
portraits, some of which are too
pat and others too tastelesS to
stand as a dramatic summary of
the misery and degradation of the
mother human.
X 4 X X
Miss CorteSa'S is the accented |
one among the several story
threads in Women Without
Names" She is beautiful Yugo-
slav prisoner; passportless
trapped animal obsessed by the
yearning that the child she is
about to bear shall be born in
the free world outside. With
what weapon shall this pitiable
creature fGht against the living
death of having no place to go?
Better equipped for such fight
is the French mink played by Miss
Simon. This one has been around
and has highly developed the wiles
by which a crafty girl can con-
quer the vulnerable world of men.
Yvonne, however, is more of AM
artful girl than a thoroughly bad
one. Her heart can be as kind as
it can be hard and she is highly
useful in the camps sea of misery.
Useful also, and a dramatic fig
ure among her often hysterical
associates, is the stately, philo-
sophie woman played by Nine.
Rosay. OF all the nameless women
on the films heartless premises,
she is the one who contrives to
maintain her dignity and uncon-
querable spirit.
The teeming barracks where
the women live need only to be
photographed in their day-to-day
routine to be dramatic. This is an
incredible way of life and no
number of films will rob it of its
abominable fascination. The cam
eras in women Without Names"
scrutinize the scene in its every
sordid corner and come up with
pictures that are irresistible.
The human natures it examines
runs the gamut and the deck is
not hopelessly stacked against the
good to be found in the prisoners
and their guards.
Among the climactic scenes, the
counter pointing is sometimes too
artful for its own good, however
There is, for example, the scene
which shows the birth of Annals
baby set against that of the bawdy
party in another part of the bar
racks. The contrast is too arbi-
trary here, but not in the sequence
which shows the prisoners herded
through the town of Bari on their
way to the dentist.
Nothing could more sharply
point the difference between be-
ing merely poor in a free world
and being entirely bereft in a
displaced persons prison.
X X X \
The key roles in Women With
out Names" are acted with ad-
mirable restraint. There is senSi-
tivenesS and dignity in Miss Cor
tesa's portrait of the aristocratic
Anna; a convincing and pert reck-