Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 349. Photo: Palermi Films / La Fotominio. Maria Corda and Ruggero Ruggeri in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna/The Most Cheerful Man in Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1925).

The plot is quite moralistic but also modern: a young girl (Corda) is easily attracted to a fancy life by a gigolo (Varconi) but her father (Ruggeri), a happy-go-lucky leader of a jazz band, energetically manages to subtract her from dangers, even if all the relatives think he is a good-for-nothing.

Hungarian Maria Corda (1898-1975) was an immensely popular star of the silent cinema of Austria and Germany. The pretty, blonde actress was a queen of the popular epic spectacles of the 1920s, which were often directed by her husband, Alexander Korda.

Ruggero Ruggeri (1871-1953) was one the most important Italian stage actors of the first half of the twentieth century, who often performed the plays by Pirandello. He did perform in films too, both in silent and sound films. Nowadays, he is best remembered as the voice of Jesus in the Don Camillo films.

Tags:   Maria Korda Ruggero Ruggeri Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Carte Postale Card Celebrity Film Film Star Filmster Movies Movie Movie Star Muet Muto Stummfilm Star Screen Silent Schauspielerin Schauspieler Darstellerin Darsteller Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte Actress Actor Actrice Acteur Attrice Attore Maria Corda Hungarian Italian Italy Italia Italiano Italiana 1920s L'uomo più allegro di Vienna 1925 Amleto Palermi Palermi Film

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Italian postcard by Edizione E.F.A. / Ed. A. Traldi, Milano. no. 945. Enrica Fantis as Maria in Die Flucht in die Nacht/Enrico IV/The Flight in the Night (Amleto Palermi, 1926), based on Luigi Pirandello's play 'Enrico IV', starring Conrad Veidt, and shot in Italy.

Enrica Fantis (1906-?) was an Italian film actress, who had a rather brief career in Italian silent and sound cinema between 1926 and 1934. She started as the friend of the rich Julia (Lia Maris) in Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii (Carmine Gallone, Amleto Palermi, 1926). In the same year, she played the female lead Maria in the German film Die Flucht in die Nacht, shot by Palermi in Italy. In 1927 she played the wife of Patapon (Marcel Levesque) in the boulevard comedy Florette e Patapon/Floretta and Patapon (Palermi, 1927), also with Livio Pavanelli and Ossi Oswalda, and the title role in another Palermi film: Nanù, la cugina d'Albania (1927), also with Sandro Salvini as her love interest and with Alba Savelli as the vamp. Fantis's last silent film was Palermi's Le confessioni di una donna/The Confessions of a Woman (1928), again with Fantis in the lead, this time opposite Luigi Serventi. In the early 1930s, Fantis returned to the sets of four Italian sound films: Vele ammainate (Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931), starring Dria Paola and Carlo Fontana, La fortuna di zanze (Palermi, 1933) starring Emma Gramatica, Porto (Palermi, 1934) starring Irma Gramatica, and Paraninfo/The Matchmaker (Palermi, 1934) starring Angelo Musco.

As Fantis only made one film not with Palermi, she was his favourite actress in the later 1920s, and maybe more, even if he was married to Ida Molinaro and had three children with the latter.

Sources: IMDB, Italian Wikipedia.

Tags:   Italian Italy Italia Italiano Italiana 1920s Enrica Fantis Enrico IV Pirandello Luigi Pirandello play adaptation queen medieval Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Cinema Carte Cine Cartolina cARD Carte Postale Celebrity Costume Cinema Italiano Film Film Star Movies Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Ansichtskarte Schauspielerin Darstellerin ACtress Actrice Attrice Theatre Theater Teatro Stage Die Flucht in die Nacht Amleto Palermi

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Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 72. Photo: S.A.I.C. Ruggero Ruggeri in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna/The Most Cheerful Man in Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1925).

Ruggero Ruggeri (1871-1953) was one the most important Italian stage actors of the first half of the twentieth century, who often performed the plays by Pirandello. He did perform in films too, both in silent and sound films. Nowadays, he is best remembered as the voice of Jesus in the Don Camillo films.

Ruggero Ruggeri broke with the histrionic acting, so typical for 19th century theater and instead opted for a more restrained, sober style, only with some stylisation of his gestures. His multi-colored voice was very popular. He was famous for his role in La figlia di Jorio by Gabriele D'Annunzio, but he was also the most important performer of Pirandello's stage plays, such as Enrico IV, purposely written for Ruggeri. He was leader of various theatre companies, with actresses such as Emma Gramatica, Lyda Borelli and Wanda Capodaglio with whom he was glorified abroad too, because of their frequent tournees.

In the silent era, Ruggeri already did 11 films, from 1914 on. First these were a series of dramas and comedies for the Cines company, where Ruggeri was often paired with Pina Menichelli and directed mainly by Nino Oxilia, who then was killed in service, shortly after Italy joined the Allied forces during the First World War. Next followed in 1917 a memorable filmic adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet: Amleto, with Helena Makowska as Ophelia and Mercedes Brignone as Gertrude, and directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi. Because of the war, the film was released outside of Italy only after the war ended. In the mid-1920s, Ruggeri would perform in films by Palermi and Genina, and in 1930 he would perform opposite Francesca Bertini in the Italian version of Königin der Nacht, directed by Marcel L'Herbier (who demanded that his name be removed, because the film was edited without his consent).

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Ruggeri was already in his sixties-seventies, he performed in 10 Italian films, often as the lead, for companies as Scalera and Lux. Titles were a.o. La vedova by Alessandrini, Il documento and I promessi sposi by Camerini, Gelosia by Poggioli and Sant'Elena, piccola isola by Simoni, playing Napoleon in the last mentioned. Ruggeri's best known performance today is only oral. That is: most older Italians will know him as the voice of Jesus in Don Camillo/Le petit monde de Don Camillo (1952) and The Return of Don Camillo/Le retour de Don Camillo (1953), both by Julien Duvivier.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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Vintage Italian postcard. Livio Pavanelli, Orietta Claudi and Alfredo Bertone in La seconda moglie (Amleto Palermi, Rinascimento Film 1922), starring Pina Menichelli. Caption: Eliana amava il padre con affetto geloso (Eliana loved her father with jealous affection).

Lord Aubrey Tanqueray (Livio Pavanelli) loses his wife, a woman of rigid habits who had managed to perfectly organize his life up to his station, but she has left him sentimentally unsatisfied. Left alone, Tanqueray sends his daughter to a religious college and leads a grey and reclused life. Years go by. The man gets tired of his solitude and starts to frequent the London society. He meets Paula (Pina Menichelli), a mundane beauty, falls in love with her and marries her, despite warnings by his friend Lord Cavley Drummle (Alfredo Bertone). Though the woman has decided to abandon her once so liberal life and shows she's eager to convert, she doesn't manage to bond with Eliana (Orietta Claudi), now a girl in full blossom, who despises of the intruder. In an attempt to solve the situation, Tanqueray decides to send the girl to Paris. Here Eliana meets captain Ardale (Alfredo Menichelli), falls in love with him, and returned, home, presents him as her fiancee. But Paula recognizes in Ardale one of her ex-lovers. She confesses to Eliana her guilt in deterring the girl to unite her life with an adventurer and makes an end to her life by a gun shot.

The play from which the film was adapted, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Arthur Wing Pinero, had already been the vehicle for stage actresses such as Eleonora Duse, Virigina Reiter and Italia Vitaliani, and afterwards Maria Melato and Emma Gramatica. Though the film, released in 1923, was received with mixed reviews, it was one of Pina Menichelli's most popular films, both in Italy and abroad.

Livio Pavanelli (1881-1958) was an Italian actor of the Italian and in particular German silent cinema. He also worked in Italian sound cinema as an actor and as a production manager. He directed four Italian films, both in the silent and the sound era.

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Vintage Italian postcard. G.B. Falci, Milano, No. 528-a. Maria Corda in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna/The Most Cheerful Man in Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1925).

Hungarian Maria Corda (1898-1975) was an immensely popular star of the silent cinema of Austria and Germany. The pretty, blonde actress was a queen of the popular epic spectacles of the 1920s, which were often directed by her husband, Alexander Korda.

Tags:   Maria Corda Maria Corda Hungarian 1920s Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine cARD Carte Postale Celebrity Film Film Star Movies Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Sepia Schauspielerin Stummfilm Darstellerin Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte ACtress Actrice Attrice Ross Ross Verlag German Germany DEutsch Deutschland L'uomo più allegro di Vienna Italian italiano G.B. Falci G.B. Falci Editore Amleto Palermi

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