He tells Irene of a young boy doomed to die because his poor family can't afford to pay for the expensive medicine.

After paying a visit to the boy's home with André, Irene, shaken by the poor circumstances which the family lives in, donates the money needed for the medication.

Shortly before her first day at the factory, the young woman tells Irene that she wants to meet a man she once knew and can't show up at her job.

When the teenage robber turns himself in, and George's lawyer appeals to the police arguing that Irene is in a state of shock after her son's death, and that her husband is an important representative of the American industry, she is put under observation in a mental institution.

[1] Facing negative critical response to his work and production problems in Italy at the time, he then considered realising the project in Paris.

[4] In the first version of the script, co-written by Federico Fellini, Irene, divorced by her husband and left by her lover André, is released from the mental institution and continues her humanitarian work in accordance with Christian dogma.

[4] When shooting began in November 1951 (production in Italy had by then been secured), the script was still in the process of re-writing before being finally submitted to the censors in January 1952.

[4] In the final version, Irene's personal interpretation of Christianity is rejected by all institutions, including the church, and her son, with whom she was re-united in the earliest script, dies.

[4] In an introduction produced for French television in 1963, Rossellini cited philosopher and activist Simone Weil as another influence on the film's main character.

[5] Additionally, film historian Elena Dagrada and Rossellini's daughter Isabella interpreted Irene as a projection of the director's trying to come to terms with the early death of his first son.

[1] Giulio Andreotti, responsible for government policy on cinema between 1947 and 1953, had, among other aspects, questioned the film's portrayal of a Communist caring for a poor, sick child while ignoring the Catholic tradition of charity, and the negative juxtaposition of Irene's Christianity with representatives of the law and the church.

[9] In 2013, the Criterion Collection released Europe '51 as part of a three-disc set titled 3 Films By Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (also containing Stromboli and Journey to Italy), which featured both the English and Italian language versions.

[4] Piero Regnoli of the L'Osservatore Romano saw the film as Rossellini's best in years, but criticised the portrayal of the representatives of religious and worldly authorities.

[4] In his 1954 review for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther found kind words for star Ingrid Bergman, but dismissed the film as "bleakly superficial and unconvincing".