Directed for the final time by her beloved Vittorio De Sica, Sophia Loren stars as Adriana, an ailing widow offered a new lease on love by her late husband’s brother (Richard Burton) in what would be only days prior to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. “[De Sica] gave me the confidence to go far beyond where I had ever gone before,” Loren said of the director, “into an area where I could not have dreamed to venture.” A romantic story adapted from a novella by Italy’s Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello, Loren adored the project, and notably bonded with Burton as a confidant offscreen during a difficult time in his life.