Totò e Carolina and the encumbrances of post-war film censorship

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between censorship and comic cinema in Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s through Mario Monicelli's films starring the legendary Neapolitan actor Antonio De Curtis (Totò). Although key figures in the Christian Democrat administration and the Catholic Church expressly discouraged the production of neo-realist films, restrictions on film content also hindered the development of Italian comedy by limiting the extent to which film-makers could reference pressing social issues or satirize Italian institutions. This study closely considers the case of Totò e Carolina/Totò and Carolina (Monicelli, 1955), one of the most heavily censored films in the history of Italian cinema, and the effects of modifications to the film on the social criticism in the version approved for public screening. Despite the fact that the censors mangled Totò e Carolina, they did not entirely eliminate its attack on hypocrisy and prejudice or prevent the film from setting the stage for the bitter comedies of the commedia all'italiana/Italian style comedy associated with the economic boom that began towards the end of the decade.