Ossessione

Ossessione English Obsession is an Italian 1943 film based on the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. Luchino Viscontis first feature film, it is considered by many to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate about whether such a categorization is accurate.

Visconti adapted the script with a group of men he selected from the Milanese magazine Cinema. The members of this group were talented filmmakers and writers and played a large role in the emerging neorealist movement Mario Alicata, Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis. When Ossessione was completed and released in 1943, it was far from the innocent murder mystery the authorities had expected after a few screenings in Rome and northern Italy, prompting outraged reactions from Fascist and Church authorities, the film was banned by the Fascist government reestablished in the German occupied part of Italy after the September 1943 armistice. Eventually the Fascists destroyed the film, but Visconti managed to keep a duplicate negative from which all existing prints have been made. After the war, Ossessione encountered more problems with mass distribution, this time in the United States. As a result of the wartime production schedule, Visconti had never obtained the rights to the novel and MetroGoldwyn Mayer began production on another version of the film, directed by Tay Garnett The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946, while the Fascist ban on Viscontis work was still in effect.Due to the copyright issues, the film didnt gain distribution outside of Italy until 1976. Despite limited screenings, it gained acclaim among moviegoers who recognized in it some of the same sensibilities they had grown familiar with in neorealist films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Puccini and De Santis, among others. ........

Source: Wikipedia