Naples au baiser de feu (1938)
Directed by Augusto Genina

Film Review

A remake of a silent film by Serge Nadejdine, Naples au baiser de feu is yet another misfired melodrama that fails to live up to the promise of its stellar cast.  Other than his inspired Louise Brooks vehicle Prix de beauté (1930), director Augusto Genina had a mostly undistinguished career and Naples au baiser de feu shows him at his most complacent and uninspired.  He isn't helped by the dull, formulaic plot, but with such charismatic performers as Tino Rossi and Michel Simon at his beck and call you would have expected something more than a mild cure for insomnia.  Mireille Balin (Rossi's partner at the time) is wasted in a thankless role, allowing a feisty Viviane Romance to have all the fun with one of her familiar vamp portrayals (the worse she gets, the more we love her).  Rossi's acting skills are next to non-existent but his charisma and vocal talents make up for this deficiency, apart from in those scenes where he appears beside Michel Simon and ends up looking like a tailor's dummy.  Definitely not the high point in Rossi's screen career but, lacking the excessive sentimentality of his later films, Naples au baiser de feu is dull without being totally nauseating.

Film Synopsis

Mario earns a modest living as a singer at a classy restaurant in Naples.  He shares an apartment with his best friend, Michel, and is head over heels in love with an attractive girl called Assunta, his boss's niece.  Michel is an organist at the city's cathedral, and it is here that he makes the acquaintance of a seductive adventuress, Lolita, to whom he is strongly attracted and offers a place to stay.  Whilst Michel makes an appeal to Assunta's aunt Thérésa to give her assent to Mario marrying her niece, Mario is succumbing to the charms of Lolita.  On the day of his wedding Mario surprises everyone by eloping with Lolita, destroying as he does so his friendship with Michel.  It isn't long before the singer realises that he has made a terrible mistake...