The sweet life turns sour

Shawn Levy specialises in chronicling 20th-century hotspots such as London in the Sixties and Sinatra’s Vegas. Here, he turns his attention to the regeneration of post-war Rome.

How did the Eternal City erase the memory of its defeat? The answer is as layered as a Cassata cake. The sponge is the commitment that saw new film-makers bringing the struggling proletariat to the screen; the cannoli cream is the cultural flowering that emerged; the rum syrup the intoxicating beauty of frankly erotic leading ladies; and the whipped froth on top the frenzy of the new media stars, the paparazzi. The whole makes for a palatable and stimulating engagement with an era that still functions as a powerful marketing tool for Italian exports.

There is, however, a story that clouds the scene. It starts in 1953 with a half-naked female corpse washed up on a beach outside Rome. The drowning was put down to misadventure, though why Wilma Montesi should have been missing her stockings and suspender belt was never satisfactorily explained.