Raffaello Matarazzo

Biography

Largely misunderstood, at best considered a little master of an Italian cinema in full revival after the war thanks to neo-realism, Raffaello Matarazzo is nevertheless the author of some sumptuous melodramas whose success was spectacular in post-fascist Italy. Matarazzo started writing film reviews for the Roman newspaper Il Tevere before re-editing scripts for the Italian film company Cines. His first films were comedies until he shifted to making melodramas. With Catene, produced by Titanus in 1949, he became the most successful director in Italy. Audience loved his melodramas. Critics, however, have tended to disparage his work, saying that Matarazzo films were Neorealismo d'appendice. Since the 1970s, some film critics have tried to restore Matarazzo's reputation. French magazine Positif loved his erotic-historical peplum The Ship of Lost Women.

Directed

1. Chains (1949) — Director
2. Nobody's Children (1951) — Director
3. Tourist Train (1933) — Director
4. Cerasella (1959) — Director
5. The Ship of Condemned Women (1953) — Director
6. Rice Girl (1956) — Director
7. Tormento (1950) — Director
8. The White Angel (1955) — Director
9. He Who Is Without Sin... (1952) — Director
10. Torna! (1954) — Director
11. The Opium Den (1947) — Director
12. The Adventuress from the Floor Above (1941) — Director
13. Giuseppe Verdi (1953) — Director
14. Melancholy Autumn (1958) — Director
15. Daddy's Little Devil (1943) — Director
16. Adultero lui, adultera lei (1963) — Director
17. The Intruder (1955) — Director
18. The Slave of Sin (1954) — Director
19. I Was to Blame (1937) — Director
20. The Last Violence (1957) — Director
21. The Hotel of the Absent (1939) — Director
22. Giù il sipario (1940) — Director
23. Giorno di nozze (1942) — Director
24. Vortice (1953) — Director
25. Lieutenant Giorgio (1952) — Director
26. L'anonima Roylott (1936) — Director
27. Guai ai vinti (1954) — Director
28. Empezó en boda (1944) — Director
29. I terribili sette (1963) — Director
30. Littoria (1933) — Director
31. Paolo e Francesca (1950) — Director
32. Trappola d'amore (1940) — Director
33. Lo sciopero dei milioni (1947) — Director
34. The Serpent's Fang (1935) — Director
35. Amore mio (1964) — Director
36. Joe il Rosso (1936) — Director
37. Dora la espía (1950) — Director
38. Sabaudia (1933) — Director
39. Mussolinia di Sardegna (1933) — Director
40. Notte di fortuna (1941) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Tourist Train (1933) — The Director of the Band (uncredited)