Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, no. 9 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.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Pina Menichelli Pina Menichelli Italian Actress Actrice Cinema Italiano Silent European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Collectors Card Chocolate Pi La Passeggera 1918
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Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, no. 3 of 6. 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. The man on the right could be Alberto Nepoti.
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.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Pina Menichelli Pina Menichelli Italian Actress Acteur Actor Cinema Italiano Silent Actrice European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Collectors Card Chocolate Pi La Passeggera 1918
© All Rights Reserved
Italian postcard by Fotocelere, Torino, no. 44.
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.
Giuseppina Menichelli was born in Castroreale, Italy, in 1890. She was the sister of singer and actress Dora Menichelli. After starting her film career at the Roman Cines company in 1913, Pina was catapulted into stardom by Giovanni Pastrone's D'Annunzian film Il Fuoco/The Fire (1915) co-starring with Febo Mari. Il Fuoco tells the love story of a young, vulnerable painter and a wealthy woman. The film's erotic atmosphere caused it to be banned and prompted clerical demonstrations against the film. Because of her femme fatale, men devouring type, and her extreme and sudden gestures she was nicknamed 'Notre Dame des Spasmes'. Menichelli did however know how to play also in a more restrained way, as Tigre Reale/Royal Tiger (Giovanni Pastrone, 1916) showed. The script was based on a book by Giovanni Verga and was scripted by the author himself. Verga was a Sicilian writer known for his realist (verismo) fiction rather than for his symbolist-decadent works. Despite this, the story of Tigre Reale is a melodrama, full of unlikely twists and turns, but the public was held, mesmerised, by the fascinating and enigmatic Menichelli.
La dama de chez Maxim's (Amleto Palermi, 1923) was one of Pina Menichelli's last films. With this film and with Occupati d'Amelia (Telemaco Ruggeri, 1925), both adaptations of French boulevard comedies by Georges Feydeau, Menichelli proved she was well able to do comedy and not only melodramatic and 'vampy' films. In both films, one of her co-stars was the French comedian Marcel Lévesque, on the far right on the card below. After these comedies, however, Pina Menichelli withdrew from the cinema and held back any attempt to interview her. Pina Menichelli died in 1984 in Milan at the age of 94. Fifteen years later she was one of the divas featured in Diva Dolorosa (Peter Delpeut, 1999), a montage of scenes featuring silent cinema divas, taken from 12 European films made between 1913 and 1920. In her fascinating, ironic text, Short Manual for the Aspiring Scenario Writer, the French author Colette gave a typical description of the femme fatale in cinema, largely based on Pina Menichelli. Talking about the 'arms' of the femme fatale Colette indicates the hat and the rising gorge: "The femme fatale's hat spares her the necessity, at the absolute apex of her wicked career, of having to expend herself in pantomime. When the spectator sees the evil woman coiffing herself with a spread-winged owl, the head of a stuffed jaguar, a bifid aigrette, or a hairy spider, he no longer has any doubts; he knows just what she is capable of. And the rising gorge? The rising gorge is the imposing and ultimate means by which the evil woman informs the audience that she is about to weep, that she is hesitating on the brink of crime, that she is struggling against steely necessity, or that the police have gotten their hands on the letter. What letter? THE letter."
Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Greta de Groat (Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen), Il Cinema Ritrovato 2015 and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: PIna Menichelli Menichelli Pina Italian Actress Cinema Italiano Silent Sepia Schauspielerin Darstellerin Actrice Attrice Italy European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Italia Italiano Italiana Muet Muto Stummfilm Diva 1910s 1920s Fotocelere
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Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 459.
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.
Giuseppina Menichelli was born in Castroreale, Italy, in 1890. She was the sister of singer and actress Dora Menichelli. After starting her film career at the Roman Cines company in 1913, Pina was catapulted into stardom by Giovanni Pastrone's D'Annunzian film Il Fuoco/The Fire (1915) co-starring with Febo Mari. Il Fuoco tells the love story of a young, vulnerable painter and a wealthy woman. The film's erotic atmosphere caused it to be banned and prompted clerical demonstrations against the film. Because of her femme fatale, men devouring type, and her extreme and sudden gestures she was nicknamed 'Notre Dame des Spasmes'. Menichelli did however know how to play also in a more restrained way, as Tigre Reale/Royal Tiger (Giovanni Pastrone, 1916) showed. The script was based on a book by Giovanni Verga and was scripted by the author himself. Verga was a Sicilian writer known for his realist (verismo) fiction rather than for his symbolist-decadent works. Despite this, the story of Tigre Reale is a melodrama, full of unlikely twists and turns, but the public was held, mesmerised, by the fascinating and enigmatic Menichelli.
La dama de chez Maxim's (Amleto Palermi, 1923) was one of Pina Menichelli's last films. With this film and with Occupati d'Amelia (Telemaco Ruggeri, 1925), both adaptations of French boulevard comedies by Georges Feydeau, Menichelli proved she was well able to do comedy and not only melodramatic and 'vampy' films. In both films, one of her co-stars was the French comedian Marcel Lévesque, on the far right on the card below. After these comedies, however, Pina Menichelli withdrew from the cinema and held back any attempt to interview her. Pina Menichelli died in 1984 in Milan at the age of 94. Fifteen years later she was one of the divas featured in Diva Dolorosa (Peter Delpeut, 1999), a montage of scenes featuring silent cinema divas, taken from 12 European films made between 1913 and 1920. In her fascinating, ironic text, Short Manual for the Aspiring Scenario Writer, the French author Colette gave a typical description of the femme fatale in cinema, largely based on Pina Menichelli. Talking about the 'arms' of the femme fatale Colette indicates the hat and the rising gorge: "The femme fatale's hat spares her the necessity, at the absolute apex of her wicked career, of having to expend herself in pantomime. When the spectator sees the evil woman coiffing herself with a spread-winged owl, the head of a stuffed jaguar, a bifid aigrette, or a hairy spider, he no longer has any doubts; he knows just what she is capable of. And the rising gorge? The rising gorge is the imposing and ultimate means by which the evil woman informs the audience that she is about to weep, that she is hesitating on the brink of crime, that she is struggling against steely necessity, or that the police have gotten their hands on the letter. What letter? THE letter."
Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Greta de Groat (Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen), Il Cinema Ritrovato 2015 and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: PIna Menichelli Menichelli Pina Italian Actress Cinema Italiano Silent Sepia Schauspielerin Darstellerin Actrice Attrice Italy European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Italia Italiano Italiana Muet Muto Stummfilm Diva 1910s 1920s Ed. A. Traldi Traldi
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Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 719.
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.
Giuseppina Menichelli was born in Castroreale, Italy, in 1890. She was the sister of singer and actress Dora Menichelli. After starting her film career at the Roman Cines company in 1913, Pina was catapulted into stardom by Giovanni Pastrone's D'Annunzian film Il Fuoco/The Fire (1915) co-starring with Febo Mari. Il Fuoco tells the love story of a young, vulnerable painter and a wealthy woman. The film's erotic atmosphere caused it to be banned and prompted clerical demonstrations against the film. Because of her femme fatale, men devouring type, and her extreme and sudden gestures she was nicknamed 'Notre Dame des Spasmes'. Menichelli did however know how to play also in a more restrained way, as Tigre Reale/Royal Tiger (Giovanni Pastrone, 1916) showed. The script was based on a book by Giovanni Verga and was scripted by the author himself. Verga was a Sicilian writer known for his realist (verismo) fiction rather than for his symbolist-decadent works. Despite this, the story of Tigre Reale is a melodrama, full of unlikely twists and turns, but the public was held, mesmerised, by the fascinating and enigmatic Menichelli.
La dama de chez Maxim's (Amleto Palermi, 1923) was one of Pina Menichelli's last films. With this film and with Occupati d'Amelia (Telemaco Ruggeri, 1925), both adaptations of French boulevard comedies by Georges Feydeau, Menichelli proved she was well able to do comedy and not only melodramatic and 'vampy' films. In both films, one of her co-stars was the French comedian Marcel Lévesque, on the far right on the card below. After these comedies, however, Pina Menichelli withdrew from the cinema and held back any attempt to interview her. Pina Menichelli died in 1984 in Milan at the age of 94. Fifteen years later she was one of the divas featured in Diva Dolorosa (Peter Delpeut, 1999), a montage of scenes featuring silent cinema divas, taken from 12 European films made between 1913 and 1920. In her fascinating, ironic text, Short Manual for the Aspiring Scenario Writer, the French author Colette gave a typical description of the femme fatale in cinema, largely based on Pina Menichelli. Talking about the 'arms' of the femme fatale Colette indicates the hat and the rising gorge: "The femme fatale's hat spares her the necessity, at the absolute apex of her wicked career, of having to expend herself in pantomime. When the spectator sees the evil woman coiffing herself with a spread-winged owl, the head of a stuffed jaguar, a bifid aigrette, or a hairy spider, he no longer has any doubts; he knows just what she is capable of. And the rising gorge? The rising gorge is the imposing and ultimate means by which the evil woman informs the audience that she is about to weep, that she is hesitating on the brink of crime, that she is struggling against steely necessity, or that the police have gotten their hands on the letter. What letter? THE letter."
Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Greta de Groat (Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen), Il Cinema Ritrovato 2015 and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: PIna Menichelli Menichelli Pina Italian Actress Cinema Italiano Silent Sepia Schauspielerin Darstellerin Actrice Attrice Italy European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Italia Italiano Italiana Muet Muto Stummfilm Diva 1910s 1920s Ed. A. Traldi Traldi
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