|
Patto col diavolo (1950)
Character: Old Laroccha - Marta's father
The title of this Italian melodrama translates to Pact with the Devil. However, His Satanic Majesty does not appear in the film. Rather, this expensively produced period piece is more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, with young love threatened by warring families. In his first Italian film, Hollywood veteran Eduardo Cianelli goes through his usual villainous paces as the scheming father of the male lead (Jacques Francois). The most fascinating performance is rendered by Umberto Spadaro, as the village idiot, or is he? Patto col Diavolo makes the most of the visual dynamics of Italy's mountainous Calabrian region.
|
|
|
Ma chi te lo fa fare? (1948)
Character: Il colonnello Sullivan
In Amalfi, a young man loves a girl who prefers the organizer of a beauty contest. The rejected lover finds an unexpected ally in the girl's aunt, an elderly dramatic actress who lives in the memory of a suitor who she believes committed suicide for her (instead, he survived and is present in the same tourist resort).
|
|
|
La principessa del sogno (1942)
Character: Il nonno di Goffredo
A sweet young woman who's an orphan is enamored with fairy tales and fantasizes that she's really a princess to help her through her life in the orphanage.
|
|
|
Giarabub (1942)
Character: N/A
The Italian troops at Giarabub defend themselves against the British.
|
|
|
Fedora (1942)
Character: Boroff
This film relates the story of Russian Princess Fedora (Louise Ferida), in Czarist times, whose royal lover is assassinated on the eve of their marriage. She pledges vengeance, only to become the victim of her vow when she falls in love again.
|
|
|
L'innamorata (1920)
Character: Ing. Franco Arnaldi
In L'innamorata, Almirante is at the zenith of her career, starring as Mara Flores, a vampish society lady, who casts her eyes on Carlo, an electrical engineer and director of a powerplant. Although attracted to Mara, he rejects her, and she immediately turns around and sinks her fangs in his best friend and future brother-in-law, Franco. Not possessing Carlo's self-composure, Franco takes up with Mara, and it leads him to his ruin and death. Now, Carlo does fall under Mara's spell, and as their passion intensifies, it becomes clear that there will be no happy end to this story.
|
|
|
Camicia Nera (1933)
Character: Sindaco
An Italian blacksmith who emigrated is wounded during the war on the French front, losing his memory. Hospitalized in a German hospital, he recovers it three years later and returns home from Tunisia, happy for the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes and the inauguration of the city of Littoria.
|
|
|
Tormento (1950)
Character: Gaetano Ferrari
Anna flees her home, where she has been victimized for years by her spineless father’s mean-spirited second wife, to be with her lover, an honest businessman yet to make his fortune. When he is accused of a murder he didn’t commit, the couple’s domestic tranquillity is upended, and a desperate Anna must rely on her cruel stepmother to help support their child.
|
|
|
La maestrina (1942)
Character: il medico condotto
In a small mountain town, a new teacher arrives, Maria Bini, who, with her extreme confidentiality, arouses people's curiosity and gossip. The young mayor of the village feels attracted to the girl and begins to court her.
|
|
|
La Gorgona (1942)
Character: Il conte Ranieri
1017 AD. The Republic of Pisa is organizing a fleet to drive out the Saracens who are infesting the Mediterranean. While the forces are away "The Gorgon," the young daughter of a Pisan nobleman who has been heroically killed, comes to be solemnly invested as the figurehead virgin who will maintain a lantern to celebrate the men's victorious return. In charge of the home guard is an ambitious young Florentine who feels deprived of the forthcoming honour and glory, and who seeks revenge by violating the sacred person of the virgin. He gains access to her well guarded quarters, but when the Gorgon falls helplessly in love with him, his desire for vengeance falls away. His plot exposed, he commits suicide rather than invoke the wrath of the Pisans. The Gorgon too takes her life by throwing herself from a high tower. Meanwhile, the victorious Pisan vessels return.
|
|
|
Duello senza onore (1950)
Character: Uncle Gustavo
Bianca, a rich heiress, being an orphan, lives in her palace with her guardian uncle and cousin Olga.
|
|
|
La porta del cielo (1945)
Character: The doctor from the white train
Episodic film with flashbacks about the lives of some sick and infirm people travelling on the same train, making a pilgrimage to the shine of Our Lady of Loreto.
|
|
|
La fuggitiva (1941)
Character: Giacomo Renier, nonno di Delfina
In the absence of the biological mother, too busy pursuing her theatrical career, we see the glorification of the maternal surrogate, a woman who is a paragon of sacrifice and self-abnegation. La Fuggitiva is also a film in which a child actress takes a prominent role. In this sentimental drama, the little girl suffers for and rebels against the loneliness and neglect stemming from the lack of a mother and a loving family setting.
|
|
|
Teresa Venerdì (1941)
Character: Umberto Vignali
A comedy of errors where floundering pediatrician Pietro takes a job as an orphanage health inspector to pay for the debts of his high-spending girlfriend Loletta, only to end up mistakenly engaged with Lilli, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and pursued by lovestruck 18-year-old orphan Teresa Venerdì.
|
|
|
|
|
Noi vivi (1942)
Character: Vassili Dunaev
At 18, the beautiful and intelligent Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out.
|
|
|
Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi (1950)
Character: N/A
In Pompeii in the year 79, Lycias and Helen fall in love. Helen's guardian, the high priest of Isis, wants to separate them. To do so, he tries to make Lycias drink a love potion, but a young slave threatens to reveal everything. The high priest, unable to silence her, kills her and arranges to have Lycias accused...
|
|
|
Piccolo mondo antico (1941)
Character: zio Piero
Franco, a young man of noble descent, marries Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother's will.
|
|
