Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, no. 5 of 9. Photo: Itala Film / Distr. J. Verdaguer, Barcelona.
Pina Menichelli in
La passeggera/The Passenger (Gero Zambuto, 1918), released in Spain as
La pasajera, and based on a story 'La passagère' by Mme Guy de Chantepleure.
Fascinating and enigmatic
Pina Menichelli (1890-1984) was the most bizarre Italian diva of the silent era. With her contorted postures and disdainful expression, she impersonated the striking femme fatale.
The beautiful, sheltered, and somewhat naïve Lucía/ Lucie Boijoli/Boisjoli (Menichelli) has been adopted by the millionaire Davrancai, a woman [a man, according to other sources] who spares no expense on her behalf and treats her like a princess. Davrancai is attacked and dies. It was her stated desire to make Lucía his heir, and she was preparing to legalize this, but the paperwork was not yet in place. Her fortune therefore passes to a distant cousin, Laura Arguin— a bitter but devout woman—who is unwilling to take Lucía in. Primary among Lucía’s court of admirers is the cynical fortune-hunter Fabricio de Mauve (Luciano Molinari), who drops her in order to marry the daughter of a millionaire industrialist.
Desperate, Lucía eventually turns to Guillermo Kerjean (Alberto Nepoti), a friend who is a mechanical engineer in charge of the Petain aviation company. As he is only thirty years old, she cannot live with him without arousing suspicion and gossip, but she hits upon a solution: they will enter a marriage of convenience. Kerjean has spoken of how he does not wish to marry because it will interrupt his life of engineering productivity, Lucía will never love another man after the disappointment of Fabricio de Mauve: they can kill two birds with one stone and live together as affectionate companions. At first unconvinced, Kerjean comes around to the idea, and soon the strange marriage is formalised. Humour ensues as they have to prove their fake marriage, but eventually real love grows between the pair.
Kerjean’s engineering work has gone very well, and proud of his accomplishments, he decides that he will fly the machine himself, accompanied by a passenger, “to demonstrate the stability and capacity of the device for long voyages”. When the launch is imminent, the mechanic who was to be the passenger does not come to the airfield because of a sudden illness, and so Lucía, even knowing the risk, decides to accompany her husband and become … la passeggiera. She will “participate in his Victory or die with him”. Their love acknowledged, Lucía and Kerjean will soar together on the wings of the powerful biplane.
While the story was not too original, audiences and press loved the performance of the two main actors. Only a short fragment of the film survives, alas, preserved by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
Source:
Silents please.
