Nest of Vipers 1978

In Venice during the 1930s, Mattia, a young man of modest background, arrives to pursue a piano scholarship at the conservatory. He quickly befriends Renato, a fellow student whose vivacious widowed mother, Carla, survives by giving piano lessons. A secret romance soon grows between Mattia and Carla, while Renato becomes increasingly suspicious of the closeness between his mother and the young pianist. The betrayal cuts deep when Mattia ends the affair, and Carla, wounded, channels her anger into a plan for revenge.

Carla’s strategy is audacious: she intends to arrange a marriage between Renato and Elena, a daughter of a wealthy family, and sets up a dinner party for Elena and her brother. Renato invites Mattia to join, and at the palazzo, Elena and Mattia are drawn to each other from the start. They walk back through a violent storm to the family home, where they are invited to stay the night in a spare room and are provided with pajamas, laying the groundwork for a forbidden affair that soon becomes a betrothal.

In a calculated move, Carla sends an anonymous letter to Elena’s parents. Mattia recognises Carla’s handwriting, and the couple finds themselves under suspicion as Elena’s family bans Carla from teaching Elena any longer. Desperate for control, Carla persuades Elena to come to her flat for an explanation. There, she seduces Elena, only to reveal, as Elena lies in bed afterwards, that the sexual encounter was a calculated ploy to ruin her reputation and force the engagement to be broken. Elena is horrified, and, in a frenzy, strikes Carla until she dies.

The investigation shuffles forward, and the police initially suspect Mattia, who has no solid alibi. Elena, in a dramatic act of loyalty, saves him by claiming she was in his room at the time of the killing. Elena’s father tries to help by offering to use his influence to secure a favorable outcome, even suggesting a job for the police commissioner’s son if Elena’s confession stays quiet. The consequences ripple through their lives, leaving Mattia to face a grim, arranged future: he is bound to marry a perjurer and a murderess, and as they step out of the church, a gondola glides by bearing only a coffin.