A widow meets a widower, they become friends and like each other, so the road seems well paved for them together, and they even get as far as to a mutual agreement and decide to marry. The problem is, he has got a daughter, and she has got a son. The son learns to accept Anthony Quinn as a means for his release from his confinement in a farm for juvenile delinquents, but the daughter finds it impossible to accept the widow of a gangster as a new stepmother. Her real mother was a mental case, and she runs the risk of hitting the same road.
Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn are both at their very best, and you are tempted to admit that she was never more beautiful. Anthony Quinn makes a surprisingly convincing Italian, he was very good in roles like this, like also 'Zorba' later on, and of course they dominate the film from beginning to end. It's a fine psychological domestic drama about Italians of Philadelphia, Martin Ritt was very strong in catching intimate and difficult psychological dramas with great restraint and perfect control to make it the more convincing, and this film is a perfect example. It's a great miniature chamber drama of great and difficult feelings, but everything comes well at home in the end.
Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn are both at their very best, and you are tempted to admit that she was never more beautiful. Anthony Quinn makes a surprisingly convincing Italian, he was very good in roles like this, like also 'Zorba' later on, and of course they dominate the film from beginning to end. It's a fine psychological domestic drama about Italians of Philadelphia, Martin Ritt was very strong in catching intimate and difficult psychological dramas with great restraint and perfect control to make it the more convincing, and this film is a perfect example. It's a great miniature chamber drama of great and difficult feelings, but everything comes well at home in the end.