I cento giorni di Napoleone (1914)

French military and political leader Napoléon Bonaparte (1969-1821) rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the subject of countless films. An early example is the Italian silent film I cento giorni di Napoleone/I cento giorni/Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914) in which Ettore Mazzanti played Napoleon. EFSP presents 21 postcards of a series of 24 vintage Italian cards of the historical film, published by Danesi in Rome and acquired by Ivo Blom.


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 1 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 2 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 3 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 4 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 5 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 6 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 8 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 10 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 11 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 12 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).

A period of 110 days

'The Hundred Days' marked the period between Napoleon Bonaparte's return from exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 - a period of 110 days. Napoleon returned to Paris with the intention of reversing the fate of the conflict against the Russian-Anglo-Prussian coalition powers that had defeated him in Leipzig. On 22 June 1815, defeated again in Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated definitively. He died in exile on the isolated Atlantic island of St. Helena, on 5 May 1821.

I cento giorni di Napoleone was produced in 1913 and premiered in January 1914 in Rome. It starts with Napoleon recollecting on St. Helena his past in flashback, from his escape from Elba to the Battle of Waterloo, and his definite defeat. In order to add a more intimate note, a sideline was inserted about a visit by Napoleon to the family of General Gérard, his enemy. While the press praised the mass choreography, it felt the intimate aspects were too few.

Napoleon was played by Ettore Mazzanti. The film was scripted by Alberto Moretti and the camerawork was by Lorenzo Romagnoli. On the postcards for the film, the production company is indicated as Vere Films, while Vittorio Martinelli's reference book 'Il cinema muto italiano, Vol. 1914, I,' indicates the company as the Roman company Vera-Films. IMDb calls the production company Vera Film. Film historian Aldo Bernardini also writes Vera Film.

The film's co-director and probably also the publisher of the postcards was Roberto Danesi (1882-1914). He was an Italian film producer, director, screenwriter, operator, and set photographer, based in Rome. In 1912 Danesi debuted with a series of films borrowing actors from the Turin company Savoia. In 1913 he was camera operator and set photographer at Cines and in the same year, he became the manager of Savoia's Roman studio, while parallel being active as a theatre director. In addition to dramas, Danesi also made Science Fiction films, and in hindsight, the actor Gian Paolo Rosmino praised his mastery of special effects.

Nino Oxilia was Danesi's assistant for some films at Savoia and learned the trade from him. At the end of 1913, Roberto Danesi and Archita Valente directed I cento giorni di Napoleone for Vera Film. In 1914 he shot films at his studio on behalf of Milano Films. He then left Savoia and founded, with Nino Martoglio, the company Morgana Films, which used the Roman studio of Savoia. With Martoglio, Danesi collaborated on two important, lost films: Capitan Blanco ( Roberto Danesi, Nino Martoglio, 1914) and Sperduti nel buio/Lost in the Dark (Nino Martoglio, 1914). In November 1914 his death and the end of his company were announced. Roberto Danesi was only 33.


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 13 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 14 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 15 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 16 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 18 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 19 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 20 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 21 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 22 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 23 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).


Italian postcard by Danesi, Roma, no. 24 of a series of 24 cards. Photo: Vere Films. Publicity still for I cento giorni di Napoleone/The Hundred Days of Napoleon (Roberto Danesi, Archita Valente, 1914).

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, Vol. 1914, I. - Italian), Aldo Bernardini (Cinema muto italiano. Protagonisti - Italian), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Daryl Hannah

American actress Daryl Hannah (1960) is a tall blond beauty, with haunting blue-green eyes. She had her breakthrough as Pris Stratton in Ridley Scott's Science-Fiction thriller Blade Runner (1982) and became a star with her part as the mermaid Madison in Ron Howard's fantasy Splash (1984). She is now best known for her role as one-eyed assassin Elle Driver in Quentin Tarantino's two-part classic Kill Bill (2003-2004).


Swedish postcard. Photo: Universal. Daryl Hannah in Legal Eagles (Ivan Reitman, 1986).


Hungarian postcard by Est Media, Budapest. Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver in Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004). Caption: Aprilis 29 - Töl a Mozikban. (In the cinema from 29 April).

An acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android

Daryl Christine Hannah was born in 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Susan Jeanne (Metzger), a schoolteacher and later a producer, and Donald Christian Hannah, who owned a tugboat/barge company. Her parents divorced and her mother subsequently married music journalist/promoter Jerrold Wexler, brother of cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Her siblings are actress Page Hannah, Don Hannah, and film director Tanya Wexler.

Daryl graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theatre. She practiced ballet with Maria Tallchief and studied drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Her interest in film was sparked by a severe case of insomnia early in life, and young Hannah would spend hours on end soaking in films into the wee hours of the night.

In her twenties, she played keyboard and sang backup for Jackson Browne. She started with small roles, such as a student in the supernatural horror film The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978) and as Kim Basinger's younger sister in Hard Country (David Greene, 1981).

Daryl's breakout role was as the acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android Pris in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). IMDb: "Pris was the vixen who wanted to live beyond her allotted years and risked the wrath of the title character." That same year she appeared in the summer hit release Summer Lovers (Randal Kleiser, 1982).

Showing her versatility, from there she portrayed a mermaid, Madison, who falls in love with a land-dweller Tom Hanks in the romantic comedy Splash (Ron Howard, 1984). The film was a huge success with both critics and audiences and helped Hannah, Hanks, and director Ron Howard to fame.

Then she co-starred in The Pope of Greenwich Village (Stuart Rosenberg, 1984), with Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts. She also played a Cro-Magnon woman among Neanderthals in the flop The Clan of the Cave Bear (Michael Chapman, 1986), based on the first part of the 'Earth Children' cycle by the writer Jean M. Auel), and the title character in Steve Martin's romantic comedy Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987), a contemporary take on Edmond Rostand's play 'Cyrano de Bergerac'.

Hannah received a Razzie Award for her part as Darien Taylor in Oliver Stone's drama Wall Street (1987) opposite Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. However, she was highly praised for her interpretation of a nerdish hairdresser Annelle Dupuy Desoto in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989) and was treated kindly by the press and public for her title role in the made-for-TV Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (Christopher Guest, 1992), a comical remake of the 1958 cult Science-Fiction film of the same name.


French postcard by Cart Postal System, Bourgoin, 1990. French film poster for High Spirits (Neil Jordan, 1988) with Daryl Hannah, Steve Guttenberg and Peter O'Toole.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 675. Spanish film poster for Memoirs of an Invisible Man (John Carpenter, 1992) with Daryl Hannah and Chevy Chase.

A contract killer with a conscience

Despite public perception that Daryl Hannah withdrew from acting in the later 1990s, it was simply an unfortunate series of career missteps that kept the enigmatic actress out of the multiplexes and in such mediocre fare as The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (Peter Markle, 1996) and the TV series Gun (1997).

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Of course, not all was lost during the 1990s, and audiences could indeed catch memorable performances by Hannah in Grumpy Old Men (Donald Petrie, 1993) (as well as that film's 1995 sequel), the Emmy-nominated mini-series The Last Don (Graeme Clifford, 1997) and the Robert Altman thriller The Gingerbread Man (1998)."

As a filmmaker, Hannah wrote, directed, and produced an award-winning short film, entitled The Last Supper (1995), for which she won the Jury Award of the Berlin Film Festival. Hannah also directed, produced, and shot the documentary Strip Notes (2002) which was inspired while researching her role as a stripper for Dancing at the Blue Iguana (Michael Radford, 2000).

She has been a consistent, strong supporter of independent cinema, both acting in and producing many films. Daryl starred in the experimental improvised Dancing at the Blue Iguana (Michael Radford, 2000), as well as the political satire Silver City (John Sayles, 2004). In 2002, Hannah appeared in Robbie Williams' video for the song 'Feel' portraying Williams' love interest.

She worked on several films with the Polish Brothers including Jackpot (Michael Polish, 2001) and the acclaimed drama Northfork (Michael Polish, 2003). The success of Northfork marked the beginning of a critical year for the veteran actress.

A turn as a contract killer with a conscience followed with The Job (Kenny Golde, 2003), and after a trip to the middle of nowhere in The Big Empty (Steve Anderson, 2003), Hannah aspired to adopt a Mexican orphan in Casa de los babys (John Sayles, 2003). Teamed with a powerhouse cast that included Lili Taylor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Marcia Gay Harden, the critically acclaimed drama cemented the comeback that would continue with Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) just a few short months later.

Cast as deadly assassin Elle Driver (Codename: California Mountain Snake), Hannah's eye-patch-wearing killer was inspired by the Eurotrash cult from Sweden, Thriller - en grym film/Thriller: A Cruel Picture (Bo Arne Vibenius, 1973), also known as They Call Her One Eye. This role, for which she won an MTV Movie Award, brought her back into the limelight. Though Hannah was still breathing at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003), audiences held their breath to discover the ultimate fate of her vicious character until the release of Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) four months later.

Vegan Daryl Hannah has been actively campaigning for the environment and a sustainable lifestyle for years. She advocates animal welfare, organic farming, renewable energy, and against nuclear power. In 2006, she made headlines by occupying a tree in Los Angeles together with singer Joan Baez.

After Kill Bill, she appeared in several TV films, miniseries, and a long series of bad to mediocre films. Hannah returned as Angelica Turing in the Netflix series Sense8 (2015-2018) by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. She can be seen in the upcoming American comedy series The Now, directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly. It stars Dave Franco as a man who decides to turn his life around after learning that he is the third member of his immediate family to be suicidal.

Darryl Hannah was in a serious relationship with John Kennedy Jr. for several years but never married due to Jacqueline Kennedy's disapproval of her son marrying an actress. She began seeing musician Jackson Browne in 1983 and eventually broke up in 1992 amid allegations that Browne was physically abusive to her. Since 2018, Hannah is married to singer-songwriter Neil Young.


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC9465. Photo: Miramax / A Band Apart. Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver in Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003). Caption: Elle Driver a.k.a. Californian Mountain Snake.


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC9458, 2004. Photo: Miramax / A Band Apart. Darryl Hannah and other cast members in Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003-2004). Caption: The 4th film of Quentin Tarantino.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Liv Ullmann

Norwegian actress and film director Liv Ullmann (1938) was the muse and frequent partner of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. She starred in 10 of his films, including Persona (1966), Vargtimmen/Hour of the Wolf (1968), and Höstsonaten/Autumn Sonata (1978), with Ingrid Bergman. Recognised as one of the greatest European actresses, Ullmann was twice nominated for an Oscar, for Jan Troell's Utvandrarna/The Emigrants (1971) and Ingmar Bergman's Ansikte mot ansikte/Face to Face (1976). In 2000, she was nominated for the Palme d'Or for her second directorial feature film, Faithless.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. VS4. Photo: Victor Skrebneski. Caption: Liv Ullman, 1973.


French postcard for the French DVD release by Dark Star / Carlotta. Photo: Bo Arne Vibenius / AV Svenska Film Industri. Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson in Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966).


French postcard fort the French DVD release by Dark Star / Carlotta. Photo: AV Svenska Film Industr. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann in Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973).

Her breakthrough on the big screen as a silenced stage actress

Liv Johanne Ullmann (also written as Ullman) was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1938. Her father, Ernst Viggo Ullmann, worked as a Norwegian aeronautical engineer for an American company, her mother Janna Erbe Lund was a bookseller. When she was two years old, the family moved to Toronto, Ontario, where her father worked at the Norwegian air force base on Toronto Island (in Lake Ontario) during the Second World War. The family moved to New York, where her father died of a brain tumour. Liv was six and the event affected her greatly. After the end of the war, Ullmann returned to Norway with her mother and sister. There she grew up and went to school in Trondheim.

Liv Ullmann studied acting, including in London, and applied several times in vain to the acting school at the National Theatre in Oslo. In 1957, she made her debut as an actress in the play 'The Diary of Anne Frank'. That year, she also made her film debut as an extra in the popular Norwegian comedy Fjols til fjells/Fools in the Mountains (Edith Carlmar, 1957). In 1960, she was finally accepted as an ensemble member of the National Theatre. She became noted for her portrayal of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's play 'A Doll's House'.

Ullmann was already a well-known theatre actress in her homeland when she met the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in the mid-1960s. She made her breakthrough on the big screen with her role as a silenced stage actress in Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) alongside Bibi Andersson. Ullmann and Bergman also became a couple in private life. They separated after five years but continued to work together.

Ullmann played in a highly successful series of films by Bergman, also including Vargtimmen/Hour of the Wolf (1968), Skammen/Shame (1968), En passion/The Passion of Anna (1969) with Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson, Viskningar och Rop/Cries and Whispers (1972) with Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin, Ansikte mot ansikte/Face to Face (1976), and Höstsonaten/Autumn Sonata (1978), with Ingrid Bergman.

These roles made her an international film star and icon of the 1970s. She co-acted often with Erland Josephson, with whom she made the legendary television drama Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973), which was also edited into a feature.

She also had a successful film career away from Bergman. Ullmann was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Utvandrarna/The Emigrants (Jan Troell, 1971) and also appeared in the sequel, Nybyggarna/The New Land (Jan Troell, 1972). Ullmann acted with Laurence Olivier in the war epic A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977). She also starred in such films as the British historical drama The Abdication (Anthony Harvey, 1974) as Christina, Queen of Sweden, La diagonale du fou/Dangerous Moves (Richard Dembo, 1984) starring Michel Piccoli and the drama The Rose Garden (Fons Rademakers, 1989) with Maximilian Schell and Peter Fonda.


East German postcard by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 46/77. Photo: Günter Linke.


East German postcard by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 123/79. Photo: Günter Linke.

Bringing back the characters of Johan and Marianne after 30 years

Since 1992, Liv Ullmann has also been active as a director. She made her feature film debut as a director with the Danish film drama Sofie (1992), which received several awards. Her best-known film is Trolösa/Faithless (2000), after an (autobiographical) screenplay by Ingmar Bergman. It was shown in the competition at the Cannes International Film Festival. Her directorial work reunited her with Bergman actors Max von Sydow and Erland Josephson as well as Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

After a long career, Liv Ullmann stopped acting in 1994. In 2003, she made a comeback in the television film Sarabande/Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, 2003), opposiite Erland Josephson. The story is a sequel to Ingmar Bergman's Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (1973), bringing back the characters of Johan and Marianne. It was her first film in 25 years with Bergman and the last film directed by him.

Liv Ullmann has won a long series of film and theatre awards, including a Golden Globe for best actress in 1971 and several oeuvre awards, including from the European Film Awards in 2004. She also received two Oscar nominations for best actress, for her roles in Utvandrarna/The Emigrants (Jan Troell, 1971) and Ansikte mot ansikte/Face to Face (Ingmar Bergman, 1976).

She was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Awards: in 1975, as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of 'A Doll's House', by Henrik Ibsen, and in 1977, as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of 'Anna Christie', by Eugene O'Neill. In 1977, Ullmann was appointed to the Norwegian Royal Order of St. Olaf and in 2006, she received an honorary doctorate from the Technical and Scientific University of Norway.

Ullmann was the jury president of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and the 1984 Berlin International Film Festival. She has written two autobiographies, 'Changing' and 'Choices'. She also worked on a number of film scripts, including a film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's famous play 'A Doll's House'. She has also been active as an ambassador for UNICEF and honorary president of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

Liv Ullmann married and divorced twice. Her first husband was the psychiatrist Hans Joacob 'Gappe' Stang (1960-1965) and the second one was the estate agent Donald Saunders (1985-1995). Her daughter with Ingmar Bergman, the writer Linn Ullmann, was born in 1966 as Karin Beate Ullmann.

In 2002, doctors diagnosed Liv Ullman with a stroke and a life-threatening opening of a ventricle. After surgery, she made a full recovery. In 2013, she directed a film adaptation of August Strindberg's play 'Fröken Julie'. Miss Julie (2014), stars Jessica Chastain, and Colin Farrell, and was widely praised by the Norwegian press.


Vintage photo.


Vintage postcard. Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson in Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973).


East German postcard by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 32/76. Photo: Günter Linke.

Sources: Volker Boehm (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb.