This film is best characterized as an Italian noir, for it has a special character of its own which is not in the same room as the great Italian neo-realistic masters. It doesn't claim to be neo-realistic either, but it is almost documentary, or would have been, if it didn't enhance the acting of Gina Lollobrigida so much. Of course, she makes a memorable performance, like in those other early films of hers during those years, but her fate as a prostitute under the regime of Mussolini in 1935 comes into the shadow of Gina herself and her personality. The only one to match her personality is her mother, Pina Piovani, who has been through it all before and raised her one child and daughter without a father. Also the four men that refuse to leave her alone fall into her shadow, as they all become obsessively dependent on her and therefore can't manage their own fates - one of them gets murdered by one of the others, and Nino, the most decent of them, the anti-fascist, ends up in an existential blind alley. Gina survives with her one heritage of this sordid life, like her mother, and so the perpetual mobile of life just goes on, and all you can do is to follow or jump off, which after all is the worst thing you can do. The film is beautifully made, it's not neo-realistic or expressionistic, but in the later part there are some very striking scenes, and Alberto Moravia himself, the author of this famous novel, appears to have had a say in the staging. It is indeed worth watching and carefully as a very interesting complement to the already very prominent cinematic art of de Sica, Visconti, Fellini and all the others.