In 1915, Enrico Guazzoni was the Midas of Italian cinema: even when called upon to venture beyond the comfort zone of the historical genre, he turned everything he directed into gold. Such is the case with La casa di nessuno. Despite the clichés of the subject matter, a “modern” drama of D’Annunzian stereotype, Guazzoni stamped the film with a mark of excellence and originality through sophisticated camera and editing techniques (axial cuts, cross-cutting, flashbacks), masterful handling of space and depth of field, and remarkable lighting effects that the director owed to the technical skill of Giovanni Grimaldi, cinematographer of subsequent masterworks such as Malombra and Carnevalesca. Of particular interest is the noir darkness of certain shots, with the faces of the protagonists emerging isolated in the gloom. Among them are Ugo Piperno – at the time a leading figure of the Italian stage alongside Lyda Borelli – and Pina Menichelli, a rising star who was already commanding the screen with that erotic charge and insolent, bewitching and unsettling expressiveness that would, before long, confirm her place in the pantheon of Italian divas.

Giovanni Lasi