Vintage Italian postcard. Ballerini & Fratini, Florence, No. 967.
Sem Benelli (Filettole, 12 August 1877 - Zoagli, 18 December 1949) was an Italian poet, writer and playwright, author of texts for the theatre and screenplays for the cinema. He was also the author of opera librettos.
Benelli was often considered by critics to be a minor D'Annunzio, but his literary talent has been re-evaluated to the point of considering him as one of the expressions of modern tragedy. The Prato playwright was the author of the play La cena delle beffe (1909), a tragedy set in the Medici Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, which was a resounding success. In 1941-42, director Alessandro Blasetti made the famous eponymous film with Amedeo Nazzari, Osvaldo Valenti and Clara Calamai based on Benelli's tragedy. From the reduction of the text to a libretto, the opera of the same name was adapted by Umberto Giordano and premiered at La Scala in Milan on 20 December 1924. Benelli's theatrical bibliography alone includes around thirty titles, developed over a period of some forty years and articulated as much in social dramas as in comedies with a bourgeois setting. Memorable titles are La maschera di Bruto (1908), La cena delle beffe (1909), L'amore dei tre re (1910), La Gorgona (1913), L'arzigogolo (1922), and L'amorosa tragedia. Some of his plays were transformed in operas. Often, his historical dramas had a typical recurring motif, that of the cunning and intelligent weakling who pits his cunning against the obtuse and overbearing strongman (La maschera di Bruto, L'arzigogolo).
In addition to the film mentioned above, at least six to seven more Italian films were made after his stage plays: starting with Lo scherno feroce (Roberto Danesi, Savoia Film 1913), which basically was a plagiarism of Benelli's La cena delle beffe. Two months after the release of the film, Benelli started a court cause against Savoia and won, forcing the film company to destroy the negative and all copies of the film, even if that was one year after, in 1914. After that, in the silent era followed first the - lost - film La Gorgona (Mario Caserinii, 1915), starring Annibale Ninchi and Madeleine Céliat. It was Caserini's first film at Ambrosio, after having left the company Gloria he helped co-found himself and for which he had done prestigious productions such as Ma l'amor mio non muore and Nerone e Agrippina. Ambrosio enabled Caserini to make a spectacular epic film, set in the Middle Ages, on a female priest who must keep a light on for the fleet off to the Crusades. She neglects her task out of love for a young man and the scandal ends in a double suicide. The film was on a par with the Antiquity films of Guazzoni, the Italian press wrote. Still, the same press also commented that the spirit of the Benelli was not fully respected - and this despite the lauded performances of the leads of Céliat and Ninchi.
Yet, the press was much more severe with Le figlie del mare (Caramba (Luigi Sapelli), Gloria 1918), starring Lia Formia as Giulia, whose jealousy of her rich cousins Francesca and Raimondo, symbolised by Francesca's string of pearls (the daughters of the sea of the film's title), becomes the ruin first of the cousins and finally of Giulia herself. Finally, in 1924 Mario Almirante filmed Benelli's play L'arzigogolo, starring Annibale Betrone and Italia Almirante Manzini in a medieval tale about a court jester (Betrone), who defies the main suitor of the lady of the castle (Manzini), Count Ciano (Alberto Collo). Italia Almirante Manzini would also play in the stage version of Benelli's L'amorosa tragedia. In the sound era, apart from Blasetti's La cena delle beffe, there was also a remake of La Gorgona (1942), this time with Mariella Lotti and Rossano Brazzi. Benelli would also collaborate on the script of Enrico Guazzoni's perod piece La Fornarina (1942), about the love of the Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio (walter Lazzaro) for his model, the baker's daughter Margherita, nicknamed La Fornarina (Lida Baarova). In 1965 Giorgio Morandi did a TV version of Benelli's play, in which Amedeo Nazzari reprised his part, now opposite Liana Orfei.
Sources: IMDb; Italian and English Wikipedia; Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano.
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Italian postcard for the Italian silent film L'arzigogolo (Mario Almirante 1924), starring Italia Almirante Manzini, Annibale Betrone, Alberto Collo and Oreste Bilancia. Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, No. 199.
The story: Monna Violante (Almirante), wed by her father to the rich merchant Floridoro (Oreste Bilancia), falls in love with Spallatonda (Annibale Betrone), the buffoon of the cruel and jealous count Giano (Alberto Collo), one her suitors. After Giano has been killed by the hand of Spallatonda, the latter flees with Monna Violante.
Italia Almirante Manzini (1890-1941) was one of the divas of the Italian silent cinema. She starred in the classic epic Cabiria (1914). See also filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/search/label/Italia%20Almi...
Tags: Italia Almirante Italia Almirante Manzini L'Arzigogolo Falci G. B. Falci 1920s Italian Italy Italia Italiano Italiana Historical Costume Historical film Adaptation play Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Card Carte Postale Celebrity Costume Cinema Italiano Film Film Star Movies Movie Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Schauspielerin Darstellerin Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte ACtress Actrice Attrice medieval Sem Benelli
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Italian postcard for the Italian silent film L'arzigogolo (Mario Almirante 1924), starring Italia Almirante Manzini, Annibale Betrone, Alberto Collo and Oreste Bilancia. Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, No. 205.
The story: Monna Violante (Almirante), wed by her father to the rich merchant Floridoro (Oreste Bilancia), falls in love with Spallatonda (Annibale Betrone), the buffoon of the cruel and jealous count Giano (Alberto Collo), one her suitors. After Giano has been killed by the hand of Spallatonda, the latter flees with Monna Violante.
Italia Almirante Manzini (1890-1941) was one of the divas of the Italian silent cinema. She starred in the classic epic Cabiria (1914). See also filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/search/label/Italia%20Almi...
Tags: Italia Almirante Italia Almirante Manzini L'Arzigogolo Falci G. B. Falci 1920s Italian Italy Italia Italiano Italiana Historical Costume Historical film Adaptation play Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Card Carte Postale Celebrity Costume Cinema Italiano Film Film Star Movies Movie Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Schauspielerin Darstellerin Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte ACtress Actrice Attrice medieval Sem Benelli
© All Rights Reserved