Madonna of the Seven Moons – 1944 | 100 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Lurid romantic tale of schizoid sexuality and Florentine low-life. Despite Jack Cox’s moody and atmospheric lighting, Arthur Crabtree‘s film is clumsy and grindingly boring with a needlessly muddled plot. The film divided critics but was a huge box-office success for Gainsborough Pictures. Phyllis Calvert, the epitome of ’40s respectability, displays a surprising sensuality as the woman raped in adolescence by a gypsy and subsequently developing a split personality.

Maddalena (Phyllis Calvert), an Italian teenager raped in adolescence by a gypsy, subsequently develops a split personality leading a double life as the respectable wife of a wine merchant Giuseppe Labardi (John Stuart) and an uninhibited gypsy. She habitually takes on the guise of lustful gypsy girl Rosanna, and disappears from her comfortable Rome home, leaving behind the cryptic sign of the Seven Moons, and into the arms of shadowy thief Nino (Stewart Granger). Nino is the leader of a gang of thieves who prey on tourists in Florence. Her daughter, Angela, follows Maddalena to the Florentine underworld.