This box set - the 27th volume of The Criterion Collection's series of rare and unknown films - turns to four baroque, operatic melodramas helmed by the Italian director Raffaello Matarazzo in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The films featured herein borrowed character types and situations from but stood at the opposite end of the stylistic spectrum. The collection begins with (1949), about an upstanding Italian housewife whose world is turned upside down by the sudden reappearance of a former lover. Next up is (1953) about a well-meaning young woman who escapes from the clutches of her nasty stepmother and attempts to begin a new life with her impoverished beau - with disastrous consequences. (1953) follows the tragic romance of a rich count and a poor village girl. Finally, (1955) resumes the story of the couple, following them on an adventure that includes a prison riot and a boating accident.