In common with many other great men, Vittorio de Sica … had a chronic weakness that was as disorienting to him as a whiff of booze can be to the alcoholic. Mr. De Sica, the social critic ("The Bicycle Thief") with an immense talent for comedy as both an actor ("It Started in Naples") and as a director ("Marriage Italian-Style"), was from time to time subject to fits of teary sentimentality that upset his balance and completely dissolved his judgment.

As a sentimentalist Mr. De Sica never went on a bender by himself. He surrounded himself with friends, as if the making of these ponderously romantic movies were really occasions of great conviviality. Perhaps they were, though it never shows in the completed pictures….

That "The Voyage," which Mr. De Sica made the year before he died, is only now reaching us is not difficult to understand. The film...