RetroClips

Assunta Spina was shot almost entirely on real Naples streets and markets rather than studio sets, a naturalism its star Francesca Bertini herself called a forerunner of what became Italian neorealism decades later. Bertini was one of silent cinema's first global superstars, and film historians widely consider her an uncredited co-director despite the formal credit going to her co-star Gustavo Serena, a common arrangement for the era's leading "diva" actresses.