Matarazzo started writing film reviews for the Roman newspaper
Il Tevere before re-editing scripts for the Italian film company
Cines. His first films were comedies until he shifted to making melodramas. With
Chains, produced by
Titanus in 1949, he became the most successful director in Italy. Audience loved his melodramas. Critics, however, have tended to disparage his work, saying that Matarazzo films were ''Neorealismo d'appendice'' (neorealism wannabe). Since the 1970s, some film critics have tried to restore Matarazzo's reputation. French magazine
Positif loved his erotic-historical
peplum Ship of Lost Women. == Filmography ==