The Milanese company Rizzoli & C. in Milan was one of the most prominent publishers of film star postcards in Italy between 1936 and 1942. Through the years, Ivo Blom collected many of the wonderful Rizzoli cards with their glamorous portraits of famous actresses. In a series of posts, Ivo chooses his favourite Rizzoli cards and describes what happened in Italy in this turbulent period. Today, Part 3 about 1938 with 8 European and 11 Hollywood stars.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Bragaglia.
Luisa Ferida (1914-1945) was an Italian stage and screen film, who was a leading actress in the late 1930s Italian sound film. In 1938, her films were Il conte di Brechard/The Count of Brechard (Mario Bonnard, 1938), Tutta la vita in una notte/All of Life in One Night (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), L'argine/The embankment (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), Il suo destino/His fate (Enrico Guazzoni, 1938), and Stella del mare/Star of the Sea (Corrado D'Errico, 1938). She was married to actor Osvaldo Valenti. Because of his close links with the fascist regime, the couple was shot by partisans in April 1945.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: B.M.
Italian actress Barbara Monis (1913-?) had a short film career, acting in only three Italian films. She had minor parts in the propaganda film Vecchia guardia (Alessandro Blasetti, 1934), and Joe il rosso (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1936). She starred in La danza delle lancette/The Dance of Time (Mario Baffico, 1936). The latter film was produced by B.M. [Barbara Monis] Società Cinematografica, so this postcard may refer to this film. It is not known whether La danza delle lancette was a success, but B.M. stopped producing after this film and Monis' career stopped too.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Baccarini.
During the 1930s and early 1940s, Silvana Jachino (1916-2004) appeared in many entertainment films, musicals, and period pieces, which hardly crossed the Italian borders. With her blond, cheerful appearance, she was not destined for tragic roles, so she didn’t become a diva like other female stars of those years. However, women copied her hairstyle, makeup, and clothes. Silvana was often paired with the big male stars of those years, such as Vittorio De Sica in Partire (Amleto Palermi, 1938). Other films in 1938 were Il corsaro nero/The Black Pirate (Amleto Palermi, 1938), Lotte nell'ombra/Battles in the Shadow (Domenico Gambino, 1938), L'ultimo scugnizzo/The last urchin (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), and Crispino e la comare/Crispino and the godmother (Vincenzo Sorelli, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Annabella (1909-1996) was France's most popular actress during the mid-1930s, but she also achieved some success in Hollywood films of the late 1930s. In 1938 she appeared in the Hollywood productions Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938) and The Baroness and the Butler (Walter Lang, 1938), and in France in the poetic-realist classic Hôtel du Nord/Hotel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Fox.
Simone Simon (1910-2005) was one of the most seductive and brilliant stars of the French cinema of the 1930s and 1950s. In 1936-1937 and during the war years she worked in Hollywood, including the comedy Josette (Allan Dwan, 1938). Publicity dubbed her ‘La Sauvage Tendre’ (The Tender Savage). Back in France, she starred in La bête humaine/The Human Beast (Jean Renoir, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Ghergo.
Germana Paolieri (1906-1998) was an Italian stage and screen actress. After the war, she also worked for radio and television. As an actress, she flourished between the early 1930s and 1981, while as film actress she peaked in the 1930s and early 1940s, but also the mid-1950s. Paolieri played the wife of the title character in Luciano Serra pilota/Luciano Serra, Pilot (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1938). This highly successful film starred Amedeo Nazzari as an ex-pilot who has abandoned wife, child, and fatherland but is called to duty when years after his son (Roberto Villa) crashes with a plane in Africa and is captured by enemies. She could also be seen in Giuseppe Verdi/Verdi (Carmine Gallone, 1938), Stella del mare/Star of the Sea (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), L'allegro cantante/The Merry Singer (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), and Tutta la vita in una notte/All of Life in One Night (Corrado D'Errico, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Montebone.
Paola Barbara (1912-1989) was an Italian actress who acted in over 60 films but also worked on stage and for television. From the late 1930s on she mainly worked in Rome, e.g. at the Scalera studios, in such films as Il trionfo d'amore/Triumph of Love (Mario Mattoli, 1938), Orgoglio/Pride (Marco Elter, 1938), Lotte nell'ombra/Battles in the Shadow (Domenico Gambino, 1938), and Per uomini soli/For Men Only (Guido Brignone, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1938 XVI. Photo: Max.
Elisa Cegani (1911-1996) was one of the most representative actresses of Italian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. She played a mannequin pretending to be a countess in Contessa di Parma (Alessandro Blasetti, 1937) and was Gino Cervi's love interest in Ettore Fieramosca (Alessandro Blasetti, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: A.P.P.I.A.
Italian film actress Caterina Boratto (1915-2010) appeared in 50 films between 1936 and 1993. In 1938 she was seen in the comedy Chi è più felice di me!/Who Is Happier Than I? (Guido Brignone, 1938), and Hanno rapito un uomo/They've Kidnapped a Man (Gennaro Righelli, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Pesce.
Oretta Fiume (1919-1994) was an Italian actress who became a star during the Fascist era after winning a competition. She started her film career in 1938 with the comedy L'orologio a cucù/The Cuckoo Clock (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1938), and a small part in Ettore Fieramosca (Alessandro Blasetti, 1938).
As Chris Wagstaff has written in the introduction to his book 'Italian Neorealist Cinema' (2007), the Neorealist Cinema of the immediate post-war years was closely related to the institutionalisation of Italian cinema in the 1930s. Between 1934 and 1939, Luigi Freddi, who was appointed by Mussolini to settle the film industry, promoted a centralised and vertically integrated industry, supporting the production side with subsidies and reducing (mainly foreign) competition. However, the Italian film industry was never as centralised and state-controlled as the German cinema under the Nazis.
In 1938, the large and established film companies won from Freddi’s centralisation’ policy and managed to get a law through, named after minister Dino Alfieri, which subsidised films on basis of box office receipts: the more box office, the more subsidy for next films. This didn’t stimulate innovation but favoured easy-going genre cinema. While after the war most fascist film laws were abolished, the Alfieri Law was reinstated by Giulio Andreotti in 1947-1949.
Another important effect of the Alfieri Law was the monopolisation of the importation and distribution of foreign films in Italy by a state organization, the ENIC. When the law went into effect the next year, all the Hollywood majors (MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner) backed out from Italy. This was a watershed in the offer on film screens and boosted national production. It didn’t mean the total disappearance of American cinema in Italy, as the Hollywood minors such as Columbia and RKO (distributor of Disney too) continued to show their films in the Italian cinemas. Still, the difference was enormous: as Steve Ricci wrote in his book 'Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922–1943' (2008), while in 1938 63 % of the film offer was American and only 13% Italian, in 1940 the Italian share was 34% and only 22% American.
One new Italian film company profited from the gap on the Italian screens, the new company Scalera, founded by the brothers Salvatore & Michele Scalera and backed by the regime. The Scalera brothers, who had been active before in building roads and airports in Italy and its colonies, copied the Hollywood studio system and attracted a ‘stable’ of actors that would match and to a certain extent even copy the major stars of Hollywood, such as Amedeo Nazzari, Rossano Brazzi, Fosco Giacchetti, Isa Pola, Luisa Ferida, and Doris Duranti. Major directors were Mario Bonnard, Amleto Palermi, and Goffredo Alessandrini, while major cinematographers were Ubaldo Arata, Massimo Terzano, and Otello Martelli.
At the 1938 Venice film festival, political pressures were getting clear: winners were two propagandistic films, Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary Olympia (on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games), and Alessandrini’s Luciano Serra pilota/Luciano Serra, Pilot (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1938), starring Amedeo Nazzari. While the Italians only had four features on show, 1938 was also the last year the Americans had a big presence in Venice, both in number (13 features / 10 shorts) and artistry (Jezebel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Test Pilot, Vivacious Lady, etc.). Walt Disney’s feature-length Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs received a special award, while the Coppa Volpi for best actress was given to Norma Shearer for her part in the period piece Marie Antoinette (W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier, 1938), and for best actor to Leslie Howard in the British film Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, 1938). The award for best director went to Carl Froehlich for Heimat/Magda (1938) with Zarah Leander.
The 1938 edition also showed for the first time a large retrospective, this time dedicated to French cinema from its origins to 1933. The audience thus could enjoy masterpieces of French cinema by the Lumière bros., Georges Méliès, Louis Feuillade, Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac, and René Clair. Yet, also recent French cinema was present with eight modern features and many shorts, including Le quai des brumes/Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938) with Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, and Michel Simon. It got a special recommendation. Awards were also given to the documentary The River (1938) by Pare Lorentz, while the festival audience could also see a young Ingrid Bergman in the Swedish film En Kvinnas ansikte/A Woman’s Face (Gustav Molander, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century. Constance Bennett in The Affairs of Cellini (Gregory La Cava, 1934).
Constance Bennett (1904-1965) was a Hollywood star of the 1920s and 1930s. In the early 1930s, she was for a time Hollywood's most popular and best-paid star and is known for e.g. What Price Hollywood? (George Cukor, 1932). She was the older sister of actress Joan Bennett.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Luise Rainer (1910–2014) was a German-American-British film actress. She was the first thespian to win multiple Academy Awards and, with that, the first to win back-to-back, for The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard, 1936) and The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937). In 1938, she starred in The Toy Wife (Richard Thorpe, 1938), the Johann Strauss biography The Great Waltz (Julien Duvivier, 1938), and Dramatic School (Robert B. Sinclair, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Radio Pictures (RKO). Frances Dee in Becky Sharp (Rouben Mamoulian, 1935).
Frances Dee (1909-2004) began her film career as an extra. After her breakthrough role in Playboy of Paris (Ludwig Berger, 1930) opposite Maurice Chevalier, she met Joel McCrea on the set of The Silver Cord (John Cromwell, 1933). Following a whirlwind courtship, the two married later that year. Their 57-year marriage ended in 1990 when McCrea died. In 1938, Dee starred in If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) opposite Ronald Colman.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Claudette Colbert in Under Two Flags (Frank Lloyd, 1936).
With her round apple-face, big eyes, and charm, French-born Hollywood star Claudette Colbert (1903-1996) was the epitome of chic sophistication. Her comedies It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934) - for which she won the Oscar, Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939) and The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942) are among Hollywood's greatest ever. In 1938, she co-starred with Gary Cooper in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1938), and in Zaza (George Cukor, 1938). After more than 60 films, she returned with great success to the theatre and was 84 years old when she won a Golden Globe for the TV mini-series The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (John Erman, 1987).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Eleanor Powell (1912-1982) was an American dancer and actress, best remembered for her tap dance numbers in such MGM musicals as Born to Dance (Roy Del Ruth, 1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and Rosalie (W.S. Van Dyke, 1937). Her machine-gun footwork established her as the Queen of Ra-Ta-Taps.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
American film and stage actress Jean Parker (1915-2005) landed her first screen test while still in high school. She had a successful career at MGM, RKO, and Columbia including roles in such films as Little Women (George Cukor, 1933), Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933), and The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935). In 1938, she acted in Penitentiary (John Brahm, 1938), Romance of the Limberlost (William Nigh, 1938), and The Arkansas Traveler (Alfred Santell, 1938).
Italian postcard. Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. 20th Century Fox.
The film career of Loretta Young (1913-2000) peaked between the late 1920s and the early 1950s. She acted in over 100 films. In 1938, she could be seen in Four Men and a Prayer (John Ford, 1938), Three Blind Mice (William A. Seiter, 1938), Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938), and Kentucky (David Butler, 1938).
Italian postcard. Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Sylvia Sidney (1910-1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned over 70 years. In the 1930s, she rose to prominence with leading roles in such films as City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931), Pick-Up (Marion Gering, 1933), Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936) and Fritz Lang's Fury (1936). In 1938 she starred in You and Me (Fritz Lang, 1938). She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a caseworker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Warner Bros.
Anita Louise (1915-1970) was named as a WAMPAS Baby Star and frequently described as one of the cinema's more fashionable and stylish women. She was best known for her performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt, 1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (William Dieterle, 1935), Anthony Adverse (Mervyn LeRoy, 1936), Marie Antoinette (W.S. Van Dyke, 1938) and The Little Princess (Walter Lang, 1939).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: First National.
American stage and film actress Kay Francis (1905-1968) was known for films such as Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932). After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she first was a Paramount early sound film star but then became the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, becoming the highest-paid American film actress in those years. In 1939 she was declared box-office poison.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Columbia Pictures.
American actress Ann Sothern (1909-2001) had a career on stage, radio, film, and television, that spanned nearly six decades. In 1939, MGM cast her as Maisie Ravier, a brash yet lovable Brooklyn showgirl, which lead to a successful film series. In 1953, Sothern moved into television as the star of her own sitcom Private Secretary. In 1987, Sothern appeared in her final film The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson, 1987) and earned her only Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
To be continued.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Bragaglia.
Luisa Ferida (1914-1945) was an Italian stage and screen film, who was a leading actress in the late 1930s Italian sound film. In 1938, her films were Il conte di Brechard/The Count of Brechard (Mario Bonnard, 1938), Tutta la vita in una notte/All of Life in One Night (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), L'argine/The embankment (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), Il suo destino/His fate (Enrico Guazzoni, 1938), and Stella del mare/Star of the Sea (Corrado D'Errico, 1938). She was married to actor Osvaldo Valenti. Because of his close links with the fascist regime, the couple was shot by partisans in April 1945.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: B.M.
Italian actress Barbara Monis (1913-?) had a short film career, acting in only three Italian films. She had minor parts in the propaganda film Vecchia guardia (Alessandro Blasetti, 1934), and Joe il rosso (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1936). She starred in La danza delle lancette/The Dance of Time (Mario Baffico, 1936). The latter film was produced by B.M. [Barbara Monis] Società Cinematografica, so this postcard may refer to this film. It is not known whether La danza delle lancette was a success, but B.M. stopped producing after this film and Monis' career stopped too.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Baccarini.
During the 1930s and early 1940s, Silvana Jachino (1916-2004) appeared in many entertainment films, musicals, and period pieces, which hardly crossed the Italian borders. With her blond, cheerful appearance, she was not destined for tragic roles, so she didn’t become a diva like other female stars of those years. However, women copied her hairstyle, makeup, and clothes. Silvana was often paired with the big male stars of those years, such as Vittorio De Sica in Partire (Amleto Palermi, 1938). Other films in 1938 were Il corsaro nero/The Black Pirate (Amleto Palermi, 1938), Lotte nell'ombra/Battles in the Shadow (Domenico Gambino, 1938), L'ultimo scugnizzo/The last urchin (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), and Crispino e la comare/Crispino and the godmother (Vincenzo Sorelli, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Annabella (1909-1996) was France's most popular actress during the mid-1930s, but she also achieved some success in Hollywood films of the late 1930s. In 1938 she appeared in the Hollywood productions Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938) and The Baroness and the Butler (Walter Lang, 1938), and in France in the poetic-realist classic Hôtel du Nord/Hotel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Fox.
Simone Simon (1910-2005) was one of the most seductive and brilliant stars of the French cinema of the 1930s and 1950s. In 1936-1937 and during the war years she worked in Hollywood, including the comedy Josette (Allan Dwan, 1938). Publicity dubbed her ‘La Sauvage Tendre’ (The Tender Savage). Back in France, she starred in La bête humaine/The Human Beast (Jean Renoir, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Ghergo.
Germana Paolieri (1906-1998) was an Italian stage and screen actress. After the war, she also worked for radio and television. As an actress, she flourished between the early 1930s and 1981, while as film actress she peaked in the 1930s and early 1940s, but also the mid-1950s. Paolieri played the wife of the title character in Luciano Serra pilota/Luciano Serra, Pilot (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1938). This highly successful film starred Amedeo Nazzari as an ex-pilot who has abandoned wife, child, and fatherland but is called to duty when years after his son (Roberto Villa) crashes with a plane in Africa and is captured by enemies. She could also be seen in Giuseppe Verdi/Verdi (Carmine Gallone, 1938), Stella del mare/Star of the Sea (Corrado D'Errico, 1938), L'allegro cantante/The Merry Singer (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), and Tutta la vita in una notte/All of Life in One Night (Corrado D'Errico, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Montebone.
Paola Barbara (1912-1989) was an Italian actress who acted in over 60 films but also worked on stage and for television. From the late 1930s on she mainly worked in Rome, e.g. at the Scalera studios, in such films as Il trionfo d'amore/Triumph of Love (Mario Mattoli, 1938), Orgoglio/Pride (Marco Elter, 1938), Lotte nell'ombra/Battles in the Shadow (Domenico Gambino, 1938), and Per uomini soli/For Men Only (Guido Brignone, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1938 XVI. Photo: Max.
Elisa Cegani (1911-1996) was one of the most representative actresses of Italian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. She played a mannequin pretending to be a countess in Contessa di Parma (Alessandro Blasetti, 1937) and was Gino Cervi's love interest in Ettore Fieramosca (Alessandro Blasetti, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: A.P.P.I.A.
Italian film actress Caterina Boratto (1915-2010) appeared in 50 films between 1936 and 1993. In 1938 she was seen in the comedy Chi è più felice di me!/Who Is Happier Than I? (Guido Brignone, 1938), and Hanno rapito un uomo/They've Kidnapped a Man (Gennaro Righelli, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Pesce.
Oretta Fiume (1919-1994) was an Italian actress who became a star during the Fascist era after winning a competition. She started her film career in 1938 with the comedy L'orologio a cucù/The Cuckoo Clock (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1938), and a small part in Ettore Fieramosca (Alessandro Blasetti, 1938).
A centralised and vertically integrated industry
As Chris Wagstaff has written in the introduction to his book 'Italian Neorealist Cinema' (2007), the Neorealist Cinema of the immediate post-war years was closely related to the institutionalisation of Italian cinema in the 1930s. Between 1934 and 1939, Luigi Freddi, who was appointed by Mussolini to settle the film industry, promoted a centralised and vertically integrated industry, supporting the production side with subsidies and reducing (mainly foreign) competition. However, the Italian film industry was never as centralised and state-controlled as the German cinema under the Nazis.
In 1938, the large and established film companies won from Freddi’s centralisation’ policy and managed to get a law through, named after minister Dino Alfieri, which subsidised films on basis of box office receipts: the more box office, the more subsidy for next films. This didn’t stimulate innovation but favoured easy-going genre cinema. While after the war most fascist film laws were abolished, the Alfieri Law was reinstated by Giulio Andreotti in 1947-1949.
Another important effect of the Alfieri Law was the monopolisation of the importation and distribution of foreign films in Italy by a state organization, the ENIC. When the law went into effect the next year, all the Hollywood majors (MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner) backed out from Italy. This was a watershed in the offer on film screens and boosted national production. It didn’t mean the total disappearance of American cinema in Italy, as the Hollywood minors such as Columbia and RKO (distributor of Disney too) continued to show their films in the Italian cinemas. Still, the difference was enormous: as Steve Ricci wrote in his book 'Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922–1943' (2008), while in 1938 63 % of the film offer was American and only 13% Italian, in 1940 the Italian share was 34% and only 22% American.
One new Italian film company profited from the gap on the Italian screens, the new company Scalera, founded by the brothers Salvatore & Michele Scalera and backed by the regime. The Scalera brothers, who had been active before in building roads and airports in Italy and its colonies, copied the Hollywood studio system and attracted a ‘stable’ of actors that would match and to a certain extent even copy the major stars of Hollywood, such as Amedeo Nazzari, Rossano Brazzi, Fosco Giacchetti, Isa Pola, Luisa Ferida, and Doris Duranti. Major directors were Mario Bonnard, Amleto Palermi, and Goffredo Alessandrini, while major cinematographers were Ubaldo Arata, Massimo Terzano, and Otello Martelli.
At the 1938 Venice film festival, political pressures were getting clear: winners were two propagandistic films, Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary Olympia (on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games), and Alessandrini’s Luciano Serra pilota/Luciano Serra, Pilot (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1938), starring Amedeo Nazzari. While the Italians only had four features on show, 1938 was also the last year the Americans had a big presence in Venice, both in number (13 features / 10 shorts) and artistry (Jezebel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Test Pilot, Vivacious Lady, etc.). Walt Disney’s feature-length Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs received a special award, while the Coppa Volpi for best actress was given to Norma Shearer for her part in the period piece Marie Antoinette (W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier, 1938), and for best actor to Leslie Howard in the British film Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, 1938). The award for best director went to Carl Froehlich for Heimat/Magda (1938) with Zarah Leander.
The 1938 edition also showed for the first time a large retrospective, this time dedicated to French cinema from its origins to 1933. The audience thus could enjoy masterpieces of French cinema by the Lumière bros., Georges Méliès, Louis Feuillade, Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac, and René Clair. Yet, also recent French cinema was present with eight modern features and many shorts, including Le quai des brumes/Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938) with Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, and Michel Simon. It got a special recommendation. Awards were also given to the documentary The River (1938) by Pare Lorentz, while the festival audience could also see a young Ingrid Bergman in the Swedish film En Kvinnas ansikte/A Woman’s Face (Gustav Molander, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century. Constance Bennett in The Affairs of Cellini (Gregory La Cava, 1934).
Constance Bennett (1904-1965) was a Hollywood star of the 1920s and 1930s. In the early 1930s, she was for a time Hollywood's most popular and best-paid star and is known for e.g. What Price Hollywood? (George Cukor, 1932). She was the older sister of actress Joan Bennett.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Luise Rainer (1910–2014) was a German-American-British film actress. She was the first thespian to win multiple Academy Awards and, with that, the first to win back-to-back, for The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard, 1936) and The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937). In 1938, she starred in The Toy Wife (Richard Thorpe, 1938), the Johann Strauss biography The Great Waltz (Julien Duvivier, 1938), and Dramatic School (Robert B. Sinclair, 1938).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Radio Pictures (RKO). Frances Dee in Becky Sharp (Rouben Mamoulian, 1935).
Frances Dee (1909-2004) began her film career as an extra. After her breakthrough role in Playboy of Paris (Ludwig Berger, 1930) opposite Maurice Chevalier, she met Joel McCrea on the set of The Silver Cord (John Cromwell, 1933). Following a whirlwind courtship, the two married later that year. Their 57-year marriage ended in 1990 when McCrea died. In 1938, Dee starred in If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) opposite Ronald Colman.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Claudette Colbert in Under Two Flags (Frank Lloyd, 1936).
With her round apple-face, big eyes, and charm, French-born Hollywood star Claudette Colbert (1903-1996) was the epitome of chic sophistication. Her comedies It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934) - for which she won the Oscar, Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939) and The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942) are among Hollywood's greatest ever. In 1938, she co-starred with Gary Cooper in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1938), and in Zaza (George Cukor, 1938). After more than 60 films, she returned with great success to the theatre and was 84 years old when she won a Golden Globe for the TV mini-series The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (John Erman, 1987).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Eleanor Powell (1912-1982) was an American dancer and actress, best remembered for her tap dance numbers in such MGM musicals as Born to Dance (Roy Del Ruth, 1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and Rosalie (W.S. Van Dyke, 1937). Her machine-gun footwork established her as the Queen of Ra-Ta-Taps.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
American film and stage actress Jean Parker (1915-2005) landed her first screen test while still in high school. She had a successful career at MGM, RKO, and Columbia including roles in such films as Little Women (George Cukor, 1933), Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933), and The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935). In 1938, she acted in Penitentiary (John Brahm, 1938), Romance of the Limberlost (William Nigh, 1938), and The Arkansas Traveler (Alfred Santell, 1938).
Italian postcard. Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. 20th Century Fox.
The film career of Loretta Young (1913-2000) peaked between the late 1920s and the early 1950s. She acted in over 100 films. In 1938, she could be seen in Four Men and a Prayer (John Ford, 1938), Three Blind Mice (William A. Seiter, 1938), Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938), and Kentucky (David Butler, 1938).
Italian postcard. Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Sylvia Sidney (1910-1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned over 70 years. In the 1930s, she rose to prominence with leading roles in such films as City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931), Pick-Up (Marion Gering, 1933), Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936) and Fritz Lang's Fury (1936). In 1938 she starred in You and Me (Fritz Lang, 1938). She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a caseworker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Warner Bros.
Anita Louise (1915-1970) was named as a WAMPAS Baby Star and frequently described as one of the cinema's more fashionable and stylish women. She was best known for her performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt, 1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (William Dieterle, 1935), Anthony Adverse (Mervyn LeRoy, 1936), Marie Antoinette (W.S. Van Dyke, 1938) and The Little Princess (Walter Lang, 1939).
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: First National.
American stage and film actress Kay Francis (1905-1968) was known for films such as Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932). After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she first was a Paramount early sound film star but then became the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, becoming the highest-paid American film actress in those years. In 1939 she was declared box-office poison.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C. Milano, 1938. Photo: Columbia Pictures.
American actress Ann Sothern (1909-2001) had a career on stage, radio, film, and television, that spanned nearly six decades. In 1939, MGM cast her as Maisie Ravier, a brash yet lovable Brooklyn showgirl, which lead to a successful film series. In 1953, Sothern moved into television as the star of her own sitcom Private Secretary. In 1987, Sothern appeared in her final film The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson, 1987) and earned her only Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
To be continued.
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