Producer: Arthur M. Loew. Copyright 24 May 1951 by Loew's Inc. (In notice: 1950). An M-G-M picture. New York opening at the Trans-Lux 52nd Street: 5 April 1951. U.S. release: 27 July 1951. U.K. release: 16 July 1951. Australian release: 30 May 1951. 9,217 feet. 102 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Weak-willed, mother-dominated Philip Quas (John Ericson) brings back his wartime Italian bride Teresa (Pier Angeli) to live with his family in an overcrowded New York slum tenement. Frustrations and setbacks in his job and in his relations with his wife and parents precipitate a nervous breakdown.
NOTES: Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Story, losing to Seven Days to Noon. Film debuts of John Ericson, Ralph Meeker, Rod Steiger; and English-language debut of Anna Maria Pierangeli. (Lee Marvin was reportedly engaged as an extra). Although it didn't make Bosley Crowther's "Top Ten", Teresa does figure in his nine-film supplementary list for The New York Times.
COMMENT: Highly regarded in its day, Teresa is still a film that holds the attention. John Ericson's performance remains a key problem. He's inadequate - yet this was the best acting he ever gave. Zinnemann's expert coaching was more lasting and more successful with his other English-language debut principal, the lovely Anna Maria Pierangeli who was to become an extremely popular Hollywood star in the years ahead.
A number of especially fine players in the support cast also deserve to be noticed. In fact, starting with Patricia Collinge as the hero's possessive mom and listing down through Rod Steiger's surprisingly young-looking and self-effacing psychiatrist (another Zinnemann discovery), we should heartily applaud just about everyone, but especially Ralph Meeker (also making his debut here) and Richard Bishop (who had a small part in 1942's Native Land, but seemingly made no other films aside from Teresa), powerfully effective as Ericson's ineffectual dad.
Zinnemann and his brilliant cinematographer, William J. Miller, have created unforgettable images - both in the lighting and composition of scenes involving the principals and of the contrasting landscapes of a barren Italian village and a crowded New York slum. Much of the movie was obviously shot on location. The seeming authenticity of the material (such as a combat patrol, a wharfside war brides' re-union, the hero's flight from a dole queue) gives the film a welcome air of real-life documentary rather than staged Hollywood drama.
SYNOPSIS: Weak-willed, mother-dominated Philip Quas (John Ericson) brings back his wartime Italian bride Teresa (Pier Angeli) to live with his family in an overcrowded New York slum tenement. Frustrations and setbacks in his job and in his relations with his wife and parents precipitate a nervous breakdown.
NOTES: Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Story, losing to Seven Days to Noon. Film debuts of John Ericson, Ralph Meeker, Rod Steiger; and English-language debut of Anna Maria Pierangeli. (Lee Marvin was reportedly engaged as an extra). Although it didn't make Bosley Crowther's "Top Ten", Teresa does figure in his nine-film supplementary list for The New York Times.
COMMENT: Highly regarded in its day, Teresa is still a film that holds the attention. John Ericson's performance remains a key problem. He's inadequate - yet this was the best acting he ever gave. Zinnemann's expert coaching was more lasting and more successful with his other English-language debut principal, the lovely Anna Maria Pierangeli who was to become an extremely popular Hollywood star in the years ahead.
A number of especially fine players in the support cast also deserve to be noticed. In fact, starting with Patricia Collinge as the hero's possessive mom and listing down through Rod Steiger's surprisingly young-looking and self-effacing psychiatrist (another Zinnemann discovery), we should heartily applaud just about everyone, but especially Ralph Meeker (also making his debut here) and Richard Bishop (who had a small part in 1942's Native Land, but seemingly made no other films aside from Teresa), powerfully effective as Ericson's ineffectual dad.
Zinnemann and his brilliant cinematographer, William J. Miller, have created unforgettable images - both in the lighting and composition of scenes involving the principals and of the contrasting landscapes of a barren Italian village and a crowded New York slum. Much of the movie was obviously shot on location. The seeming authenticity of the material (such as a combat patrol, a wharfside war brides' re-union, the hero's flight from a dole queue) gives the film a welcome air of real-life documentary rather than staged Hollywood drama.