Senza sapere niente di lei / Unknown Woman (2024 restoration Cineteca di Bologna / Les Films du Camélia)

Luigi Comencini: Senza sapere niente di lei / Unknown Woman (IT 1969) with Philippe Leroy (Nanni Brà) and Paolo Pitagora (Cinzia).

Sans rien savoir d'elle / Ohne viel von ihr zu wissen / Without Knowing Anything About Her.

    IT 1969. Prod.: Angelo Rizzoli per Rizzoli Film.

    Director: Luigi Comencini. Sog.: base on the Leone Antonio Viola’s novel La morale privata [Antonio Leonviola]. Scen.: Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Raffaele La Capria, Leone Antonio Viola, Luigi Comencini, Leopoldo Machina. F.: Pasqualino De Santis – colour – Techniscope. M.: Nino Baragli. Scgf.: Franco Bottari, Ranieri Cochetti. Mus.: Ennio Morricone. Int.: Philippe Leroy (Nanni Brà), Paola Pitagora (Cinzia), Sara Franchetti (Pia), Elisabetta Fanti (secretary), Graziella Galvani (Giovanna), Giorgio Piazza (lawyer Polli), Silvano Tranquilli (engineer Zeppegno), Fabrizio Moresco (Orfeo).

    96 min

    Not released in Finland

    DCP with English subtitles by Eoghan Price from Cineteca di Bologna.

    Restored in 2024 by Cineteca di Bologna and Les Films du Camélia at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the original camera and sound negatives provided by Mediaset.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Life First! The Cinema of Luigi Comencini.

    Introduced by Emiliano Morreale.

    Viewed at Cinema Modernissimo, 26 June 2025.

Emiliano Morreale (Bologna 2025): "Senza sapere niente di lei belongs to a series of “mystery” films that Luigi Comencini produced over the years, irregularly but consistently. In the early 1950s there were Persiane chiuse and La tratta delle bianche, noir melodramas with groundbreaking stories about the post-war bourgeoisie. In the 1970s, two mystery comedies characterised by a dark vision of Italian society: Turin in the Fruttero and Lucentini adaptation The Sunday Woman and the tenants of a Roman apartment block in Il gatto, based on a story by Rodolfo Sonego."

"In between stands this film, based on a novel by the director Antonio Leonviola and scripted by Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Raffaele La Capria, amongst others. Stylistically, it is one of the director’s most curious films, influenced by the experimentalism of the period, with flashbacks, ellipses and a loose syntax."

"In a Milan whose representation also incorporates bits of Rome, an insurance agency lawyer investigates the death of an elderly woman: if she committed suicide, the company will not have to pay out on a billion lira policy in favour of her children. The investigations reveal the pettiness not only of the relatives, but also of the detective, played by Philippe Leroy, who begins a relationship with one of the deceased’s daughters."

"The heart of the film, and ultimately the one truly positive protagonist, is this unsettled and neurotic young woman, incapable of being a rebel. It is a splendid performance by Paola Pitagora and one of the best female portraits in Italian cinema of the period."

"From his 1950s melodramas to La ragazza di Bube and from Delitto d’amore to the inquest L’amore in Italia, Comencini was always a sensitive chronicler of women." (Emiliano Morreale, Bologna 2025)

AA: Luigi Comencini's modern thriller Unknown Woman takes a premise that has affinities with classic film noir storywise but veers into a scary psycho jungle.

The figure of the insurance lawyer in the quicksands of moral hazard has affinities with Walter Neff in Double Indemnity. Transgressions start almost immediately when Nanni Brà (Philippe Leroy) jumps into the bed of his client Cinzia (Paola Pitagora). She does not seem to be a femme fatale like Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) but has been compared with Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) in Angel Face...

It is fascinating to see Comencini experiment with the Modernist thriller style of Elio Petri, and the film is well made in every respect. Paola Pitagora is an original and unusual actress whom I only knew from Fists in the Pocket before seeing Unknown Woman. In both, she daringly goes deep inside the mind of a mentally disturbed woman.

Mental disturbance is a touchy subject in my opinion. As a rule I don't like it being exploited in an entertainment film. In a mystery suspense thriller it is easily reduced to a trick.

One can see in Unknown Woman a contribution to Comencini's vision about the disillusion of the Economic Miracle. There is a wealthy family, and look at the inheritors. Madness is perhaps a valid reaction, as well as the death drive.

I need to see more of Comencini's thrillers, but at this stage of my education I prefer his comedies, his studies of recent history and especially his tales of childhood.