MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS (1945)

Cast

Plot

Madalenna is a married woman who leads a respectable, socially acceptable life. Except at certain intervals in that life, when a childhood trauma produces amnesia. She is no longer the respectable married woman, but a gypsy possessed by a wild, free-living spirit. This, supposedly true story, is the most bonkers of all the melodramas that Gainsborough produced. Madonna of the Seven Moons abandons the usual British historical setting in favour of a highly stylised Florence, nominally set in the 1930s but bearing little resemblance to Mussolini's Italy or indeed anyone else's. The 'Italian' characters talk and behave as though they've stepped out of a Noël Coward play set in the Home Counties. Surreal and utterly compelling.