Fernanda (1917)

Italian film diva Leda Gys (1892-1957) starred in ca. 60 dramas, comedies, action thrillers, and even Westerns of the Italian and Spanish silent cinema. In 1917, she starred in the silent Italian film Fernanda, directed by Gustavo Serena and based on a play by Victorien Sardou. Ivo Blom found two, incomplete series of Spanish collectors cards for the film. Both series were once supplements in chocolate boxes of two different manufacturers


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Imperiale, Barcelona, series of 6 cromos, no. 1. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Imperiale, Barcelona, series of 6 cromos, no. 3. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917). Here we see Fernanda and her mother (Olga Vannelli).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Imperiale, Barcelona, series of 6 cromos, no. 4. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Imperiale, Barcelona, series of 6 cromos, no. 5. Leda Gys, Gustavo Serena and Olga Benetti in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Imperiale, Barcelona, series of 6 cromos, no. 6. Leda Gys, Gustavo Serena and Olga Benetti in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917). The woman with the veil is Olga Benetti, left in the back Orlando Ricci as Roqueville.

Growing up in an illegal gambling house

Fernanda's father kills himself when he goes bankrupt. Her mother (Olga Vannelli) fights poverty and in order to save her daughter, she accepts to run an illegal gambling house. In this milieu young Fernanda (Leda Gys) grows up to be an attractive young girl. The bandit Roqueville (Orlando Ricci) lusts for her but when rejected by Fernanda, he denounces her mother who is arrested.

Left alone, Fernanda is promised by Roqueville that her mother will be freed once Fernanda accepts to marry him. She tries to commit suicide by throwing herself before a car, but she is saved by the ones in the car, the lawyer Giorgio Pomeral (Gustavo Serena) and his cousin, the widowed marchioness Clotilde (Olga Benetti). The terrible experience has matured Fernanda.

The marquis d'Arcis (Alfredo de Antoni), who is about to marry Clotilde, falls in love with Fernanda and wants to marry her. The dumped Clotilde takes revenge by intercepting a written confession of Fernanda to her future husband about her past. She thus reveals after the wedding the past of Fernanda. The husband throws his newlywed young wife out of the house, thinking she is a slut. In the end, the marquis knows to pardon his wife because when the letter resurfaces, he is assured that the purity and honesty of his wife have never been tainted.

Fernanda had its premiere in Rome on 16 February 1917. While the Turinese Rivista cinematografica thought Gys should better stick to comedy, instead Tito Alacevich, for the Neapolitan journal Film considered her performance and that of the others well done and to the point. He also praised the vivacity and the cinematography but missed the couleur locale of Paris and the Parisians; veracity, in short. Fernanda was internationally well distributed all over Europe.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, series of 6 cards, no. 3. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917). This is probably the moment Fernanda's mother (Olga Vannelli) is arrested by the police.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, series of 6 cards, no. 4. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917). The characters standing left must be Olga Vannelli (Fernanda's mother) and Orlando Ricco (Roqueville), one notices the gambling table in the back.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, series of 6 cards, no. 6. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917).

Source: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano) and IMDb.