Best From France

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An all-star cast fuels this story of a sleepy Italian fishing village where illicit passions, hypocrisy and abuse churn beneath the town's quiet surface. In this riveting drama, directed by Jules Dassin (Topkapi, Night and the City, Never on Sunday), Gina Lollobrigida smoulders as Marietta, the most attractive woman in town. Every man wants her, but she only has eyes for Enrico (Marcello Mastroianni), a young, handsome engineer whose desperate poverty prevents him from marrying her. Yves Montand is Matteo Brigante, an unscrupulous gangster who seduces his son's girlfriend, Donna Lucrezia (Melina Mercouri), to break them up. The tensions steadily build and threaten to explode in a town where the law is a cruel game played by men ruled by their desires. Originally released in the U.S. as Where the Hot Wind Blows.