Cinema, Also Showing Mar. 10, 1947

Before Him All Rome Trembled

(Minerva; Superfilm) is an Italian-made movie which juxtaposes the tyrannies and passions of Puccini's opera, La Tosca, and those of the Nazi domination of Rome. The story: a famous tenor hides a Polish Jew and a wounded British agent from the SS. His sweetheart [Anna Magnani], a famous soprano, misunderstanding his secretiveness, inadvertently betrays him through her jealousy. While the SS closes in, the Italian lovers sonorously sweat out La Tosca's similar story on the stage of Rome's Royal Opera House.

This is a florid—but attractive—idea.

The overblown eloquence...