Gino Moliterno
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HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF ITALIAN Cinema GINO MOLITERNO Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts Jon Woronoff, Series Editor 1. Science Fiction Literature, by Brian Stableford, 2004. 2. Hong Kong Cinema, by Lisa Odham Stokes, 2007. 3. American Radio Soap Operas, by Jim Cox, 2005. 4. Japanese Traditional Theatre, by Samuel L. Leiter, 2006. 5. Fantasy Literature, by Brian Stableford, 2005. 6. Australian and New Zealand Cinema, by Albert Moran and Errol Vieth, 2006. 7. African-American Television, by Kathleen Fearn-Banks, 2006. 8. Lesbian Literature, by Meredith Miller, 2006. 9. Scandinavian Literature and Theater, by Jan Sjåvik, 2006. 10. British Radio, by Seán Street, 2006. 11. German Theater, by William Grange, 2006. 12. African American Cinema, by S. Torriano Berry and Venise Berry, 2006. 13. Sacred Music, by Joseph P. Swain, 2006. 14. Russian Theater, by Laurence Senelick, 2007. 15. French Cinema, by Dayna Oscherwitz and MaryEllen Higgins, 2007. 16. Postmodernist Literature and Theater, by Fran Mason, 2007. 17. Irish Cinema, by Roderick Flynn and Pat Brereton, 2007. 18. Australian Radio and Television, by Albert Moran and Chris Keat- ing, 2007. 19. Polish Cinema, by Marek Haltof, 2007. 20. Old Time Radio, by Robert C. Reinehr and Jon D. Swartz, 2008. 21. Renaissance Art, by Lilian H. Zirpolo, 2008. 22. Broadway Musical, by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, 2008. 23. American Theater: Modernism, by James Fisher and Felicia Hardi- son Londré, 2008. 24. German Cinema, by Robert C. Reimer and Carol J. Reimer, 2008. 25. Horror Cinema, by Peter Hutchings, 2008. 26. Westerns in Cinema, by Paul Varner, 2008. 27. Chinese Theater, by Tan Ye, 2008. 28. Italian Cinema, by Gino Moliterno, 2008. 29. Architecture, by Allison Lee Palmer, 2008. Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema Gino Moliterno Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts, No. 28 The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2008 SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 by Gino Moliterno All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moliterno, Gino, 1951 Historical dictionary of Italian cinema / Gino Moliterno. p. cm. (Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts ; no. 28) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 13: 978 0 8108 6073 5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 10: 0 8108 6073 2 (hardcover : alk. paper) eISBN 13: 978 0 8108 6254 8 eISBN 10: 0 8108 6254 9 1. Motion pictures Italy Dictionaries. 2. Motion pictures Italy History Dictionaries. I. Title. PN1993.5.I88M56 2008 791.430945’03 dc22 2008011225 ∞™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48 1992. Manufactured in the United States of America. For Patricia, light of my life too soon extinguished “Or ho perduta tutta la mia baldanza che si movea d’amoroso tesoro . ” Contents Editor’s Foreword (Jon Woronoff) ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xii Reader’s Note xiii Acronyms and Abbreviations xv Chronology xvii Introduction xxxi THE DICTIONARY 1 Appendix: Winners at the Venice Festival and of the David di Donatello and Nastri d’argento 347 Bibliography 399 About the Author 449 vii Editor’s Foreword Italy was one of the first places where cinema emerged, and there are few other countries where it has flourished more spectacularly. Despite crises and being overshadowed by mass production from Hollywood, Italian cinema has constantly reinvented itself in an amazing variety of forms, including neorealism, which has spread worldwide. Its produc- tion is amazingly broad, from outright trash to the very finest art films—a steady flow of quite ordinary popular films but also specialties such as commedia all’italiana and spaghetti Westerns. Many have gone on to win awards and appear on all-time-great lists, including some that are so universal—and so Italian—that they are known worldwide under their Italian names, such a La strada, La dolce vita, and Padre padrone. There are more than enough reasons to welcome the Historical Dic- tionary of Italian Cinema, which can serve as an informative guide for both those who simply enjoy watching Italian films and those who study the genre more closely. Italian cinema’s long history is charted in the chronology and the introduction, but the dictionary section—with hundreds of entries on directors, producers, and actors; major studios and film companies; characteristic genres and themes; and memorable films—is where readers will spend the most time. The book concludes with an appendix of award winners and a bibliography, which readers can use to find many other sources. The author, Gino Moliterno, was born in Italy and has had an abiding interest in Italian cinema for several decades. After teaching Italian lan- guage and culture at the University of Sydney, the University of Auck- land, and the University of Wollongong, he joined the Department of Modern European Languages at the Australian National University. He is presently senior lecturer of its Film Studies Program. He has lectured extensively on Italian cinema and was the general editor and contribut- ing author to the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture (2000). ix x•EDITOR’S FOREWORD In this historical dictionary he presents a broad and deep introduction to one of the most prolific contributors to world cinema. Jon Woronoff Series Editor Preface Italian cinema has been one of the major cinemas of the world and has been both much admired and extensively studied by numerous scholars in many languages. Italian readers have always been well served by a wealth of authoritative general histories and monographic studies on the Italian cinema in all its aspects, as well as a wide variety of single and multivolume encyclopedias and dictionaries for more specific consulta- tion. For some time now, English readers have also had available a number of excellent overarching histories of the Italian cinema and many outstanding studies of particular aspects and specific directors. However, apart from the valuable but all-too-brief BFI Companion to Italian Cinema there exist no comparable dictionaries or encyclopedias of the Italian cinema for quick factual reference or generic consultation for English readers. The present work hopes to go some way toward fill- ing this gap, by offering accurate, up-to-date, and readily accessible en- tries that cover the entire history of the cinema in Italy from 1895 to the present. Given the limitations of the single-volume format and the need to select from an almost unlimited number of possible inclusions, it too will inevitably have left its own gaps. Nevertheless, the hope is that by strategic selection and cross-referencing of entries, enough of such a vast territory has effectively been covered to be able to provide the non- Italian reader with a useful and accurate guide to one of the truly great cinemas of the world. xi Acknowledgments Many more people have helped to bring this work to completion than can be mentioned by name, not all of whom can be mentioned here. I would like, nevertheless, to express my deepest appreciation to all of them but offer particular thanks to Jon Woronoff for his infinite patience and his invaluable editorial advice; Clara Fossati (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia) for facilitating my access to films and printed mate- rials; Paolo Cherchi Usai and Quentin Turnour (Australian National Film and Sound Archive) for help in accessing materials; Luca Giuliani (Cineteca del Friuli) for information and access to films; Peter Delpeut for making available his wonderful documentary on the Italian divas; Roberta Bonalume, Rosie Paris, Joe Di Giacomo, and Dona Di Gia- como for their help in gaining access to many of the films on video; Brigid Maher for her assiduous research assistance; Sarah Lysewycz for her attentive reading of the manuscript; Caren Florance for her typeset- ting and general wisdom; Roger Hillman for his unfailing encourage- ment; Paul Eggert for his wise counsel; Vittoria Pasquini for our lively discussions on all aspects of Italian cinema; and Adam Shoemaker for everything. Most of all I would like to thank my wife, Patricia Werle- mann, for her forbearance, generosity of spirit, and unstinting support for a project that continued to compete for my time and attention even as she was valiantly battling two major illnesses. This book is dedicated entirely to her. xii Reader’s Note For the benefit of non-Italian readers, all Italian film titles are followed in parentheses by their English translation. Where the English title is an official one that already exists in general circulation, it is given in ital- ics. A nonitalicized English title indicates that no previous English ver- sion of the title has been found and the translation offered is my own. No translation is given in cases where the Italian title is so well known that it is also used in English or in cases where the title involves an un- translatable play on words, as in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Allonsan- fan. What is regarded as the official date of a film can often vary accord- ing to the source. The date provided here is the one that the majority of the most reliable sources furnish as the year of the film’s Italian release. Throughout the volume if a title, name, or phrase appears in bold it indicates that the dictionary includes an entry on the topic.