I mariti (Tempesta d'anime)

I Mariti is not exactly The Rules of the Game or, to get closer to the time frame of the story, The Leopard, but it is a handsomely mounted look at 19th century aristocratic life and the complex relationships among a set of well depicted characters. Hearthtrob Amedeo Nazzari plays a self made lawyer who is married to the daughter of a Duke, but it is only toward the end of the drama that she develops any feeling for him, busy as he is with court work.He graciously and successfully defends her dissolute lover in a trial and shows a further nobility of spirit by getting into a duel with an elderly baron who has compromised his wife's sister in law. Director Camillo Mastrocinque, who during this period presided over a number of skillful productions comparable to Hollywood in their technical slickness, deserves some of the credit for marshalling the cast and delivering the overall pleasant results.