'Ossessione'

Finally, one of the few times the Europeans have taken an American piece and turned it into something of their own (done three years before the American adaptation).

Ossessione, of course, is an adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, the well-known story of the tramp that has an affair with a restaurateur's wife and the pair connive to kill the husband to not only run away with each other but also collect on his life insurance.

The film was almost not seen by anyone outside of anyone that saw it upon its release in 1943. Director Luchino Visconti had sneaked the film beyond the Fascist censors and upon its released it outraged everyone. The Fascists burned the film.

Visconti, thankfully, kept a duplicate negative. Even still, the film was never distributed outside of Italy until 1976