Il cavaliere misterioso

Riccardo Freda is the master of the popular cinema ;although he broached French melodrama ("Le Due Orfanelle"; "Roger La Honte" ) , spy thrillers ("coplan" ) and even Shakespeare (an estimable " Giulietta e Romeo) ,his forte was always the epic costume drama,a genre he supported against Italian Neo -Realism ;after all there's room for everyone,and I guess that the Italian directors,were they intellectual ,are more tolerant than the French highbrows of the New Wavelet.

To begin a movie with a torture scene is rather sassy !To continue with a tour in the Venice prisons ("Piombi") makes you ask for more;it explains ,so to speak,why Casanova was able to escape from those sinister dungeons where you would sweat in Summer and freeze in Winter.

Freda knows only one tempo:accelerated,and in his movies,there's never a dull moment ;some compared his Casanova to a Bondesque spy :there are plenty of Casanova girls,including the director's wife ,Gianna Maria Canale,who would often epitomize the treacherous beauty when she grew older.Actually,Freda's Casanova is closer to Arsene Lupin (a womanizer too) ,and the episode of the safe seems borrowed from Maurice Leblanc's "813".The woman dressed up as a man is also featured in "Don Cesare Di Bazan" and in his brilliant remake " Le Sette Spade Del Vendicatore" ,Freda's masterpiece ,at least to my eyes .

Like Sherlock Holmes,Casanova had a brother who is in big trouble in Venice;if his Don Juan sibling does not bring back a compromising letter,he will be executed ;and he's only got one month;from Venice to Austria to Russia (where he meets the great Catherine),our hero (a young Vittorio Gassmann) will display charm and ruse to achieve his task.

If you like entertaining movies,which make you forget the trouble and the strife,this is a movie you should see.