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Rome, Open for British Production: The lost world of ‘Britalian’ films, 1946-1954

2013; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2013.798076

1465-3451

Steve Chibnall,

Cinema and Media Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 John Stafford, The £.S.d. of Film Making in Rome Studios, Kinematograph Weekly, 20 June 1946, 14. I am indebted to Dr. Paola Merli for her painstaking and insightful comments on this paper’s arguments and understanding of Italian history, culture and cinema. 2 Herbert Harris, Gentleman From Verona, Picturegoer, 10 April 1948, 10. 3 Andrew Grey, Gracie—48 years young, Picturegoer, 5 January 1946, 8. 4 ‘Britalian’ is a word sometimes used to identify the Italian community in the UK. 5 By 1952, Italian film exports were worth more than £1.75 million, probably only slightly lower than those of Britain. Official statistics for British film exports were not published until 1956, when they stood at £4 million. Ironically, the rapid growth of the Italian industry might not have been possible without the infrastructure of technical training and state support put in place over the previous two decades by Mussolini’s regime to save the ailing film industry. This foundation was built upon by the governments of reconstruction, which put the volume of Italian production on a par with that of Britain by promoting co-production and distribution deals and instituting a production fund of £3 million. Italy Increases Subsidy for Producers, Kinematograph Weekly, 28 August 1952, 9. For an overview of the Italian film industry in this period see, for example: Pierre Sorlin, Italian National Cinema (London, 1996), 83–93; Marcia Landy, Italian Film (Cambridge, 2000), 15–20; Matthew Hibberd, The Media in Italy (Maidenhead, 2008), 51–56. 6 J. Arthur Rank Speaks …, and Let British Films be Ambassadors to the World, Kinematograph Weekly, 11 January 1945, 35 and 163. 7 Letter from Joan T. Zappa, Picturegoer, 16 August 1947, 14. 8 Letter from Brian Roger Haigh to Picturegoer 8 November 1947, 14. 9 Distribution and Exhibition of Cinematograph Films: Report of the Committee of Enquiry Appointed by the President of the Board of Trade, HMSO, Comnd 7837, November 1949, para 51. 10 Recalled in To-day’s Cinema 20 November 1945, 4. 11 Some civilian cinemas, including all of the ones in Naples, were out-of-bounds to Allied troops ‘for health reasons’. Captain Andrew Grey, ‘Going to the pictures in Italy’, Picturegoer 31 March 1945, 8–9. However, almost all cinemas south of Rome had been derequisitioned by June 1945. War Office 204/3305. Public Records Office (hereafter PRO). 12 The British film industry was equally slow to supply publicity material to the thriving Italian fan magazines, which were unhampered by paper shortages. Grey op cit. 13 The cheeky Lancastrian’s dialogue was dubbed in falsetto Italian, but his comic songs were left in their original form, perhaps deemed beyond effective translation. Ibid. 14 The Cinema, 15 May 1946, 31. The nomination by the British authorities in Italy of Smith as the sole representative of all film companies caused an outcry from Rank’s competitors in May 1945. Representatives of private companies had not been allowed to visit Italy up to this point, but American companies were already evading this prohibition by securing attachments to the Office of War Information. Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 371/49949. PRO. 15 Internal Bank of England memo to Mr. Somervell, 23 October 1946. Board of Trade (hereafter BT) 11/3201. PRO. 16 Treasury memo from E. Rowe-Dutton to Sir Wilfred Eady, 31 October 1946. BT 11/3201. PRO. 17 See correspondence in FO 371/60671. PRO. 18 Talks began on 21 March 1945 and produced a set of draft proposals on 30 May 1945. Captain Vernon Jarrett (rather than ‘one of Mr. Rank’s men’) was appointed as the British’s Film Officer with a seat on the Italian Film Board. FO 371/49949. PRO. 19 Verrnon Jarratt, The Italian Cinema (London, 1951), 62. 20 David Forgacs, Italian Culture in the Industrial Era: cultural industries, politics and the public (Manchester, 1990), Chapter 5. 21 Kinematograph Weekly, 12 December 1945, 20. 22 Robert Raymond, Invaders Welcome!, Film Illustrated Monthly, 3(2) (1948), 18–19; Peter Noble, Film Illustrated Monthly, 2(11) (1947). 23 Tony Rose, Continental Invasion, Picturegoer, 14 February 1948, 7. 24 Lionel Collier, Continental Hits, Picturegoer 10 September 1949, 21. However, the exhibition of almost all Italian films in Britain was restricted to a small number of specialist cinemas. By September 1956, Italy had produced more than 1,500 films during the previous decade, but only Bread, Love and Jealousy (1954) had achieved a circuit release in Britain. Italians Demand British Circuit Deal—or Else, Kinematograph Weekly, 6 September 1956, 3. 25 In truth, there were a number of British silent films that utilised Italian locations, and a few examples in the 1930s of Anglo-Italian production co-operation. Carmine Gallone, an experienced Italian director who had also worked in France and Germany during the contraction of his home industry, directed scenes shot at the Venice Carnival for the musical For Love of You (UK, 1933). Unsurprisingly, these were emphasised in the publicity: ‘Every gondola available in Venice was commandeered and several hundreds of gondoliers and lovely girls took part. The title song “For Love of You” is sung here with beautiful effect by Foresta as the gondolas containing young lovers slip past, making the scene one of rich splendour and romance.’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 2 November 1933, 53.) Gallone’s 1935 Bellini bio-pic Casta Diva was made by Gaumont British in partnership with Allenza Cinematografica Italiana The English languish version The Divine Spark employed the scripting talents of Emlyn Williams and an entirely different cast, with the exception of Marta Eggerth. Mario Zampi’s First World War drama 13 Men and a Gun (1938) was made for Two Cities Films by a British cast in Italy in bilingual versions, but the English version failed to meet the qualifying conditions for a British quota film. The decision to film in Italy was probably shrewd at a time when the doors to the Italian market were rapidly closing to foreign-made films. Two Cities would go on to be one of the most successful production outfits in 1940s British cinema, but not before Zampi and his business partner Fillipo del Giudice had spent some of the war years interned on the Isle of Man as enemy aliens. 26 The Cinema 23 November 1945, 16. 27 The Cinema 14 August 1945, 6. MGM had begun negotiations for the rights to Quo Vardis just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, and it eventually became Hollywood’s most expensive film when £2.5 million was spent on its production, principally at Cinecittà, in 1950. 28 Kinematograph Weekly, 15 August 1946, 24. 29 Stefano Pittaluga had produced the first Italian sound film in 1930. The picture was directed by Gennaro Righelli, who would also direct L’Armata Azzura. 30 The Blue Squadron pressbook, Warner Bros First National, 1934. 31 Warners appealed, but to no avail. Kinematograph Weekly, 2 August 1934, 3. 32 The Cinema 28 November 1945, 6. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Kinematograph Weekly, 7 February 1946, 22. 36 Gentilomo had directed Rome Symphony (1939), one of the World Windows series of Technicolor shorts photographed by Jack Cardiff. His other credits included the well-received Carnival in Venice (1940) and, most recently, the neo-realist influenced O Sole Mio (1945). 37 William Freshman, Roman holiday, Film Industry, December 1946, 2–3. 38 Jarratt, op cit. 39 Kinematograph Weekly, 14 March 1946, 13. 40 Kinematograph Weekly, 21 March 1946, 25. 41 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 May 1946, 24. 42 Stafford, op cit. 43 To-day’s Cinema, 4 March 1947, 22. 44 Film Report 1455, 7 March 1947. 45 Picturegoer, 5 July 1947, 13. 46 Elisabetta Girelli, Beauty and the Beast: Italianness in British cinema (Bristol, 2009), 19–27. See also Lucio Sponza, Italian Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Britain: realities and images (Leicester, 1988). 47 A Man About the House pressbook, British Lion, 1947. 48 Ibid. See also Michael Denison, Overtures and Beginners (London, 1973), 209. 49 The Cinema, 8 January 1947, 30. 50 Picture Show, 29 November 1947, 11; Film Illustrated Monthly, 2(10) (1947), 23. 51 Andrew Gray [sic, Grey?], The British Film World Needs a Place in the (Empire) Sun, Film Industry, October 1946, 8–9. On ‘bandits’, see Film Industry, November 1946, 18. It would be another 10 years before the ACT and the three Italian technicians’ unions came to an agreement on location filming in both countries. Kinematograph Weekly, 27 September 1956, 3. 52 Douglass Montgomery, My Adventures in Italy, Picturegoer, 24 May 1947, 11. 53 The Cinema, 10 December 1947, 22. 54 Call of the Blood is the story of a British bourgeois couple (the husband is of Mediterranean origin) who honeymoon in Sicily where the people are closer to nature. The contemporary advertising for Hitchens novel colourfully evokes its discourse of erotic essentialism: ‘A story thrilling with the exultant joy of physical life […] In the man’s veins runs a stream of hot Southern blood, which unawakened until this time, now echoes a quick response to the romantic and mysterious environment and to the beauty of an alluring young peasant girl’ (New York, 1906). 55 Film Industry, March 1948, 18. 56 To-Day’s Cinema, 13 February 1948, 14. 57 One Night With You pressbook, Rank, 1948. 58 Patricia Roc International Fan Club Magazine, 1(8) (October 1947), 2. Two months earlier, announcing that she had been given the part, she had been rather more enthusiastic: ‘So it’s the true blue Italian skies for me, friends! … Pauline, my personal maid, is very thrilled about it all.’ Patricia Roc International Fan Club Magazine, 1(6) (August 1947), 6. 59 Kinematograph Weekly, 21 August 1947, 13. 60 Film Illustrated Monthly, 3(6) (1948), 23. 61 Sunday Express, 25 April 1948. 62 Can Price make Byron box-office?, Film Illustrated Monthly, l3(3) (1947), 6–7. 63 Dennis Price, Bringing a character to life, Picturegoer, 28 February 1948, 10. 64 Sydney Box and Vivian Cox, The Bad Lord Byron (London, 1949), 92. 65 The Cinema, 22 October 1947, 19. 66 Film Illustrated Monthly, 4(5) (1949), 13. 67 The film had the working title OK, Agostina at this point. 68 To-Day’s Cinema, 22 April 1949, 3, 20. 69 Dora Dobson, Experiment that Became a Triumph!, The Cinema Studio, 8 December 1948, 15. Ischia became the home of the English composer William Walton in 1949, and was later the base for location work on the Anglo-American swashbuckler, The Crimson Pirate (1952), although the action was supposed to be set in the Caribbean. Studio work followed at Teddington and Elstree. The film was a major box-office hit, but the production was dogged by script re-writing and other delays caused by transportation problems, near-death accidents and the confusions arising from using three crews: British, American and Italian, under the direction of Robert Siodmak and Vernon Sewell. As a consequence, Warner Bros’s frozen assets were well nigh evaporated. See Colin Hanmer, Ischia is an island, not a sneeze, Picturegoer, 14 February 1953, 10–11. 70 Yvonne Mitchell, Actress, London, 1957, 71–77. 71 To-Day’s Cinema, 11 October 1949, 11; Kinematograph Weekly, 13 October 1949, 24. In Film Monthly Review (December 1949, 42), Austin Welland, frustrated by the film’s ‘trite’ dialogue, condemned the picture as ‘a futile attempt to “cash in” on the current craze for films with an Italian setting’. 72 A Legend, an opera and a triangle, The Cinema Studio, 9 June 1948, 7. ‘No film made against the background of either the Dolomites or of Venice could be wholly dislikeable’, commented the Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1949. 73 Michael Denison’s account of the filming in his Overtures and Beginners (221–223) includes comments on the privations of living on the £5 per week allowed by British foreign currency restrictions, and a description of floating down the Venetian Grand Canal by moonlight with Tito Gobbi singing the melancholy songs of the gondolieri. 74 Not surprisingly, Brief Encounter was a favourite of Rota’s. On his positive experience of composing for a British film, see Nothing Like it in Italy, The Cinema Studio, 6 October 1948, 9–10. See also George Minton. Where The Glass Mountain got its title, The Cinema Studio, 10 November 1948, 17–18. 75 The Times, 4 February 1949. The Cinema Studio’s review judged The Glass Mountain ‘a shrewd compromise between the high and low-brow’ and correctly predicted that it would have ‘considerable box-office success’. 20 January 1949, 21. 76 Quoted in Dennison Thornton, Portrait of George Minter, The Cinema Studio 8 December 1948, 15. 77 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 September 1948, 21. 78 Angelo Unit Start in Italy, The Cinema Studio, 1 September 1948, 9–10. 79 The Cinema Studio, 10 November 1948, 13. 80 Majorie Rhodes, My Dream Holiday, Film Illustrated Monthly, 3(12) (December 1948), 5. 81 Private Angelo pressbook, Associated British-Pathe, 1949. 82 In his autobiography, Dear Me, Harmondsworth, 1978, 211, Peter Ustinov clarified his own thoughts on this controversial aspect of Italianism:The Italians have always seemed to me to be almost over-endowed with courage expressed in the form of personal panache, or recklessness. They are nonpareil in the production of Condottieri, poisoners, boxers, racing-drivers, stuntmen, popes angelic and diabolical, gangsters, and unflinching martyrs. Place all these disparate elements in a trench, however, and cover them with the drab uniform and a coat of mud, give them a officer or two that they don’t necessarily respect, and of course their splendid qualities of individual radiance are tarnished. They prefer not to die under anonymous, or worse, under stupid circumstances. These aspects of Italian character would be revisited in the more well-known Captain Correlli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières’ 1994 book filmed by Working Title in 2001. 83 Douglas Bodkin, Bidding Goodbye to Trequanda, The Cinema Studio, 3 November 1948, 15. On the production of Private Angelo, see also, The Quadruplicated Duty of Ustinov, The Cinema Studio, 15 December 1948, 9–11. 84 Picturegoer, 6 August 1949, 14. 85 The Cinema Studio, 29 September 1948, 10. 86 Quoted in a digest of reviews of Private Angelo in The Cinema Studio, 13 July 1949, 15. 87 Peter Noble, Film Illustrated Monthly, 4(8) (1949), 17. 88 Private Angelo pressbook, Associated British-Pathe, 1949. The film’s publicity materials also included showcards to promote Italian wines endorsed by Maria Denis. 89 Ustinov estimated a saving of £40,000 on Private Angelo by keeping studio work to a minimum. The Cinema Studio, 6 October 1948, 10. He saved another £23,000 by finishing location shooting two weeks ahead of schedule. The Cinema Studio, 24 November 1948, 16. See also Operation Angelo, Kinematograph Weekly, 28 October 1948, 31. 90 See the Mole-Richardson supplement, Kinematograph Weekly, 29 October 1953. 91 The Cinema Studio, 6 October 1948, 10. 92 Kinematograph Weekly, 11 August 1949, 3. As well as half a dozen quota films shot in Italy, the previous year had seen four filmed in Austria, two in Germany, and three in France. 93 The Cinema Studio, 25 January 1950, 3. 94 BT 64 95/4934, PRO. Quoted in Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: the film industry and the British government 1927–84, London, 1985, 182. 95 Italian immigration numbers increased from 350 in 1947 to 6500 in 1949. Terri Colpi, The Italian Factor: the Italian community in Great Britain (Edinburgh, 1991), 134. Their lives in Bedford were depicted in the Viking Film Unit’s documentary England May be Home (1950). 96 The Cinema Studio, 13 October 1948, 15. See also: Calvert on location, Picturegoer, 26 February 1949, 7. 97 Acting in the SUN, Peter Noble’s Picture Parade, 1949, 113–16. 98 The Times, 18 April 1949; Evening Standard, 14 April 1949. 99 The Cinema 13 April 1949, 15; Daily Worker, 16 April 1949. 100 Picture Show, 10 September 1949, 10. 101 Acting in the SUN, op cit. 102 Michael Korda, Charmed Lives, London, 1979, 242–246. 103 Interviewed by the author 22 July 2008. A union representative was flown in to make sure the crewing arrangements were being observed. 104 The Cinema Studio, 20 July 1949, 18. See also Kinematograph Weekly, 26 May 1949, x). Documents relating to the picture’s successful registration as a British film survive as PRO file BT 64/2497. Newbrook recalled that he was paid in cash with ‘bagfuls of lire’. 105 See, for example, the location report in The Cinema Studio, 10 August 1949, 16. 106 22,000 people went to see it in one week at the Sheffield Gaumont alone. Kinematograph Weekly, 15 February 1951, 16. 107 The budgets for these films were around £135,000 each, considerably less than those given to Rank’s prestige pictures. Kinematograph Weekly, 3 February 1949, 24. 108 They Only Had a Touch of the Sun!, The Cinema Studio, 11 January 1950, 11–15. 109 Desmond Dickinson, BECTU Interview. 110 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 August 1951, 14, had more reservations than most: ‘The volatile Italians pep things up a bit, but fail to atone for the fundamental error of presenting bedroom farce in the open air.’ For an assessment of the film’s box-office performance see Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1953, 8. 111 Kinematograph Weekly, 21 July 1949, 29. 112 To-Day’s Cinema, 17 February 1950, 6. 113 Stephen Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow (London, 2000), 27. 114 See Government Backing More Than 50% of Present Filming, The Cinema Studio, 12 October 1949, 3, 12; Studios Dark But Money for the Continent, Kinematograph Weekly, 13 October 1949, 3. The NFFC backed Her Favourite Husband, Children of Chance, State Secret, My Daughter Joy, Shadow of the Eagle and Interrupted Honeymoon. 115 Italian and British Film Producers Associations were in regular talks on saving dollars by extending the mutual exchange of pictures, although, while foreign pictures were regularly and successfully dubbed into Italian, the same skills and facilities were scarce in Britain. Italian Producers in Two-Way Distribution Talks with BFPA, Kinematograph Weekly, 27 July 1950, 9. 116 Five Countries Make One Film, The Cinema Studio, 11 August 1948, 3, 6. 117 Operation X pressbook, Columbia Pictures, 1950. 118 For example, Dilys Powell in the Sunday Times, 18 June 1950. 119 The Cinema Studio, 5 October 1949, 3. Salkow had the help of Jacopo Comin for the Italian version. 120 Spectacular and picturesque … Magnificently photographed, was the verdict of Picture Show, 55(1437–1440) (1950), 12. 121 Daily Telegraph, 28 August 1950. 122 Better Over Here …, Kinematograph Weekly, 2 March 1950, 28. 123 Unity Park, On Filming in the Dolomites, The Cinema Studio, 26 October 1949, 7–10. 124 Picture Show, 26 November 1949, 11. 125 Jock Macgregor, Location Italy, Picturegoer, 8 October 1949, 10. See also: Elizabeth Forrest, The Secrets of State Secret, Picturegoer, 9 September 1950, 12–14. 126 Quoted in a digest of reviews in The Cinema Studio 26 April 1950, 18–19. ‘Really splendid entertainment […] one of the films one is proud to claim as British’, said Picture Show, 9 September 1950, 12. 127 Kinematograph Weekly, 15 December 1949, 29. 128 Picturegoer, 19 November 1949, 3. The balance between scenic and story values in these films became a bone of contention in Picturegoer’s correspondence columns: see 6 May 1950, 3. 129 Tony Rose, I’ll Get You For This Takes Shape From Its Location, The Cinema Studio, May 1950, 21. Brinton had designed the sets for Odd Man Out (1947), another film with a strong sense of place. 130 Connery Chapple, Bicycle Thieves, Picturegoer, 28 January 1950, 21.However, Kinematograph Weekly, 15 February 1951, praised it as ‘A class production, rich in local colour’. 131 Kinematograph Weekly, 27 December 1951, 12. 132 Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1953, 8. 133 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 August 1951, 19. 134 Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1953, 8. 135 Richard Todd, My Venetian Album, Picturegoer, 17 May 1952, 9. 136 Letter from T.H. Brown, Picturegoer, 3 January 1953, 3. 137 Seaside Resorts in Italy, Rome 1951, 3–4. 138 This trend was not necessarily to the liking of British critics: ‘Ever since the film folks discovered the wide-screen they have too often been unable to resist the temptation of letting their cameras eat up an excessive amount of footage of “nice views.” Sometimes it is to disguise the thin story. Three Coins in the Fountain is a pleasant enough film. But it is the Cook’s tour of Rome and Venice that really holds the interest. Some delightful views of Naples are my main memories of Flame and the Flesh.’ Dick Richards, The Cameramen are Having a Too Wonderful Time, Picturegoer, 18 September 1954, 27. 139 Kinematograph Weekly, 17 February 1949, 31. 140 Colour in Italy, Letter from Dora Nirva, London W11. The Cinema Studio, 8 March 1950, 6. 141 On the making of the film see Picture Post, 8 August 1953, 18–21. 142 Connery Chappell, Juliet is in Love, Picturegoer, 18 September 1954, 16–17. 143 Picturegoer, 25 September 1954, 20. On the making of Romeo and Juliet see Connery Chappell, It’s Impossible—but can she do it?, Picturegoer, 26 September 1953, 8–9. 144 Kinematograph Weekly, 28 January 1954, 22. See also Margaret Hinxman, Ealing Goes in for Glamour, Picturgoer, 16 January 1954, 16. 145 The Cinema Studio, 17 August 1949, 5. Kinematograh Weekly’s correspondent, H.H. Wollenberg, could not help linking the enthusiasm in Italian studios to the absence of ‘restrictive practices’. 28 August 1952, 9. 146 Quoted in Head and Shoulders Above Hollywood, The Cinema Studio, 22 February 1950, 7–10. 147 Close Quarters Suit Italians, Kinematograph Weekly, 14 August 1952, 24. Antonioni’s British production supervisor was Guido Coen. 148 The Times, 11 July 1949. 149 On Private Angelo see, Michael Anderson, Filming Abroad and its Advantages, The Cinema Studio, 22 December 1948, 13, 66. 150 The Cinema Studio, 4 January 1950, 5. 151 Lean’s Summer Madness, with its American and Italian stars, was widely seen as an international, rather than a British production.