The Venice film festival, the 67th, has just opened. My eye was caught recently by details of a movie that was shown at last year’s gathering, entitled ‘La nave delle donne maledette’ – ‘The Ship of Lost Women’.

Directed by Raffaello Matarazzo in 1954, the film had been rediscovered – and, it seems, deservedly so:

In Spain in the 17th century the daughter of a heavily in debt noble gentleman is celebrating her marriage to a rich man who could save the family. During the party, a policeman arrives who accuses the bride of having killed a newly born illegitimate baby.

In order to save the family’s name and fortune, the bride and her father put pressure on the young cousin of the bride who lives out of their charity to take the blame and let herself be accused.   Though the bride and her father had assured her of a light sentence, the poor girl is sentenced to forced labour in the New World.

The bride and her husband embark on the same ship that will take the cousin and a large group of unfortunate women to a life of misery.   When the aristocratic bride manages to have her cousin whipped for rebellion, the women prisoners start a violent mutiny, gaining most of the sailors to their n cause, shouting “We are free” and exposing both their will of freedom… and their attractive bodies.

When the women and their men partisans have won the ship and harshly punished the evil aristocrats, a frenzy of dance, sex and alcohol take possession of the ship.

“Needless to say, the film suffered heavy cuts from the Italian censors of the time”, the review notes. Fortunately, the original print had survived. I’m wondering how many of those in the audience went home that evening to play out scenes… and whether it’s available on Amazon!