MALOMBRA (1942) (Church of Film)

Marina (Isa Miranda, Italy’s answer to Dietrich and Garbo) is relegated to the secluded castle of her uncle. Passionate and deeply troubled, she becomes convinced that she is the reincarnated spirit of her great uncle’s wife, Cecilia, who died a tragic death. When a young writer makes his entrance at the castle, she is certain that he is Cecilia’s reincarnated lover and attempts to lure him into a strange web of sex and revenge. MALOMBRA is the a decadent gothic melodrama, a favorite of the Surrealists, and a precursor to the high dramas of Luchino Visconti that has the eerie elegance of Hitchcock’s Rebecca.