Acting
During a fire, Pina is saved by her young cousin Enrico, who is blinded by the flames. The girl becomes Enrico’s guide, and the two earn their living as street musicians. Pina falls in love with Count Manlio, who sets her on the path to a singing career. For the sake of success, she abandons Enrico, but years later, overcome by remorse, she decides to leave Manlio in order to care for her cousin once again.
Born Fernando de Bulhões, he was a precocious Portuguese youth, concerned with the suffering of the poor. Grown into a contemplative young man he renounces the world to join first the Augustinian Order and then the Franciscans order (where he takes the name Anthony) in his dedicated service to the faith.
Lyda is a prostitute with no education and no hope for the future. Unfortunately, this ungrateful job leads her to have an unwanted pregnancy, and once born the child abandons her. Lyda becomes obsessed with the life of her only child.
19th century Sardou period melodrama turned into a vehicle for diva star Lyda Borelli: an aristocratic French lady leaves her unfaithful husband and becomes involved with a member of Robespierre's revolutionary regime.
[Fragment] Despite the clichés of the subject matter, a “modern” drama of D’Annunzian stereotype, [director Enrico] Guazzoni stamped the film with a mark of excellence and originality through sophisticated camera and editing techniques (axial cuts, cross-cutting, flashbacks), masterful handling of space and depth of field, and remarkable lighting effects that the director owed to the technical skill of Giovanni Grimaldi, cinematographer of subsequent masterworks such as Malombra and Carnevalesca. Of particular interest is the noir darkness of certain shots, with the faces of the protagonists emerging isolated in the gloom. https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/eventi/la-casa-di-nessuno-tribute-a-enrico-guazzoni/
