Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

29 countenance of Oreste Calabresi and the dark, far from handsome visage of Giovanni Grasso, the gluttonous Camillo de Riso, Umberto Mozzato, Ignazio Lupi and Alfonso Cassini. There was Amleto Novelli with his hypnotic eyes ; Alberto Capozzi, the « ravenous » one ; Alberto Collo, a cherubic devil ; Luigi Serventi, Lido Manenti, Livio Pavanelli, Franz Sala, Guido Trento and always Tullio Carminati — all sweet and persuasive or sinister and perverse ; Gustavo Serena and Febo Mari, « the poet of luxury » ; and Mario Bonnard, he of the classic voluptuousness — all of them strangling in stiff, white gleaming collars and resplendent in dark full-flowing frock coats. I see again the films of the trapeze and the arena — with Luciano Albertini, Cambino, Pagano, Aldini, — and those with Ausonia, Saetta, Maciste and Ajax, the vertiginous acrobats, invincible wrestlers, fearless and honorable knights all ! I still see the death-jumps, the showers of blows, trains stopped from crashing by a hair's breadth. I can still smile at the astonished expressions of Eleuterio Rodolfi and at the shortsighted Oreste Bilancia (« who purges our thoughts from all sadness and bitterness » exclaimed Amleto Novelli). Bilancia, the luckless lover, plucking the daisy petals murmuring « she loves me, she loves me not » ; Bilancia carrying a torch against his myopia, shy and resigned, a gardenia in his buttonhole, a gorgeous necktie flowering down his shirt front — I remember those grey top hats and those little derbies of the South. Sometimes, in a cafe, some dowager would be smitten by the gardenia or the necktie and Oreste took this as a sign to preen himself, smoothing and polishing himself until he was a shining gallant from the huge monocle stuck in his eye to his cream colored spats. But the lady's husband invariably arrived, tall and fuming, with enormous, bloodthirsty moustaches, and Bilancia retired in dismay. He had the round, clerical face of a lonely bachelor consoled by excellent cooking. And I remember, too, the lean and twisted Za la Mort. As Ghione put it : « It was 1919. Arsene Lupin was the rage in France as a gentleman-thief. We had to find an equivalent character to uphold the honor of our own production. I thought of creating a character called « Za la Mort », which in apache slang means « long live death ». If Lupin was a gentlemanthief, Za la Mort would be a sentimental apache with noble feelings. As I played him, he lived amid violence, but hated all ugliness ; he loved violets and the poor, and melted with tenderness at the right time and the right place. In a word, I inaugurated the romantic apache ». Za la Mort was accompanied by Za la Vie, played by Sambucini. Ghione, wholly lacking in theatrical experience, was what was still better, an instinctive film actor. His way of looking, or walking, or just saying « good morning » was pure cinema and this characterization became identified with him, which is to say that Ghione represented a definite style. I sette topi grigi (The Seven Grey Mice), La grande vergogna (The Great Shame), II triangolo giallo (The Yellow Triangle) and Anime Bnie (Dark Souls) — all were splendlt and impossible adventures. (Za la Mort appeared briefly in Broadway in 1928, the first stage -thriller in Italy. It was then that the fashion began on the stage of depicting police chasing bandits amid utter confusion. Ghione even spoke a few lines). I remember Pina Menichelli, Italia Almirante Manzini, Leda Gys, Hesperia, Soava Gallone, Vittoria Lepanto, Diana Karenne, Olga Benetti and Elena Makowska...and I can call to