«Una necessità strettamente professionale». Gli annuari come oggetto e fonte per lo studio del cinema italiano del dopoguerra

Music Publishers and Synchronized Scores: Mascagni, Ricordi, and <i>Rapsodia satanica</i>

The Italian film industry and the local banks are progressively shortening the distance between them. The traditional financing options available to producers, presales and coproductions, are now partnering with more sophisticated tools, which have already proven their efficacy in other markets. A new impulse towards these new tools is given by the newly introduced tax incentives, although the local industry still has to grow both in terms of dimension of players and diversified product.

Except for comedy, Italian popular cinema in the postwar era was mainly characterized by ephemeral genres and subgenres that would follow the model of a successful national or foreign movie and then exploit it to the point of complete saturation. A good example is the spaghetti Western, which became extremely popular in the wake of Sergio Leone’s 1964 success Per un pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars), only to disappear within about a decade. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is the fact that, unlike the Hollywood studio system, the Italian film industry was utterly disorganized, comprising countless short-lived, small production companies with no interest in building up fashionable filmic formulas for long-term use. Thus among successful genres such as the film operistico (opera film), the peplum (sword and sandal), and the giallo (thriller), comedy appears to be the only exception. As old as Italian cinema itself, comedy not only survived every crisis in the movie industry but also became increasingly important, and it is now the only popular form of Italian film (all the other genres disappeared or moved to television). This can be explained by the Italians’ well-known passion for comedy. Long before the birth of film, comedy had a long-standing tradition in Italian theater, going back at least as far as the renowned commedia dell’arte in the sixteenth century, characterized by farce, irreverent parody, mockery, and biting satire.

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. Kinematograph Weekly, 15 December 1949, 29. Picturegoer, 19 November 1949, 3. The between and story in these films became a of in correspondence see 6 May 1950, 3. Tony Rose, You For This From The Cinema Studio, May 1950, 21. had the for Man (1947), another film with a of Picturegoer, 28 January 1950, Kinematograph Weekly, 15 February 1951, it as ‘A production, rich in Kinematograph Weekly, 27 December 1951, 12. Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1953, 8. Kinematograph Weekly, 9 August 1951, 19. Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1953, 8. My Venetian Picturegoer, 17 May 1952, 9. Letter from Picturegoer, 3 January 1953, 3. in Italy, Rome 1951, This was not necessarily to the of British the film the they have been to the of their up an of of it is to the in the is a film. But it is the of Rome and Venice that the Some of are my of and the The are a Picturegoer, 18 September 27. Kinematograph Weekly, 17 February 1949, 31. in Italy, Letter from Dora The Cinema Studio, 8 March 1950, 6. On the making of the film see Picture 8 August 1953, is in Picturegoer, 18 September Picturegoer, 25 September 20. On the making of and see she Picturegoer, 26 September 1953, 8–9. Kinematograph Weekly, 28 January 22. See also Margaret in for 16 January 16. The Cinema Studio, 17 August 1949, 5. could not help the in Italian to the of 28 August 1952, 9. Quoted in and The Cinema Studio, 22 February 1950, 7–10. Kinematograph Weekly, 14 August 1952, 24. British production was The Times, 11 July 1949. On Private Angelo see, Michael Filming and its The Cinema Studio, 22 December 1948, The Cinema Studio, 4 January 1950, 5. with its American and Italian was seen as an rather than a British

Taking into account the EU policies aimed to strengthen the industrial-financial condition of its audiovisual system, the Italian broadcasters’ economy and the historical development of its relationship with the national film industry, our study will tackle the Italian free-to-air television policies in national feature films broadcasting. The study analyzes the trends of Italian feature films programming in the national free-to-air television market during the last 10 years, referring to the following issues: a) volume and origin of feature films; b) broadcaster (public and commercial); c) time slots. The results show how Italy has been experiencing a much more dramatic downturn in fiction programming in respect to the other European countries and it discloses that the increase in national TV fiction programming is accompanied by a contraction of domestic feature films slots (despite the good state of health the Italian film industry has been experiencing during the past decade) and an increase of the American ones.

This double issue focuses on the artisanal and industrial settings that characterised music and sound production processes in Italian cinema during the period 1950-75. By addressing cinema from the vantage point of sound and music, we frame it as a ‘technological milieu’ that opens up two complementing research threads: (1) understanding the history of sound technologies and production processes in local film industries; (2) analysing how musicians related to film technologies, and the degree to which such technologies come to bear on composition processes. In line with this twofold perspective, we have attempted to identify particular traits of the Italian production system that might become useful reference points for other contexts. It is widely acknowledged that within the area of (especially cinematographic) sound technologies there lies a tension between local and global instances, and yet scholarship in this field is still young and not evenly distributed: besides Hollywood, in fact, inquiries on the history of sound technology in European cinema have only recently begun to come to light. As regards research in Italy, along with oral accounts, much progress has been made possible by the recent surfacing of archives and private collections that preserve the work of composers, technicians and studios. The time would seem ripe to combine archival, philological, historiographical, technological and ethnographic approaches and this very prospective inspired the conception of this double issue. International research is beginning to document the existence of rich and multifaceted practices that vary according to their historical and geographical context. Even when faced with standardised procedures, as is often the case with cinema, the history of cinematographic sound and film music is characterised by a plurality of adaptive processes: different contexts engender original practices and technical solutions that are intertwined with the specific artistic and stylistic conception underpinning each production system. In other words, whereas, the rapid diffusion and use of a given

Muscles in the Movies: Perfecting the Art of Illusion

Sweden succeeded in remaining a non-combatant through the First World War. However, the conflict affected the nation in many ways, for example in terms of film production and film consumption. The Swedish film industry was growing rapidly already before the outbreak of the First World War. The number of cinemas increased every year. It is estimated that there were 700 cinemas in Sweden in 1919, twice the amount compared to 1914. Probably because Sweden did not take an active part in the war, it was, with a few noteworthy exceptions, rare that films produced in Sweden commented on the ongoing conflict.

The chapter provides an overview of the history of the post-war Italian film industry from crisis to crisis, that is to say from the ground zero of 1945 (when the whole Italian film business had to be politically and economically reorganised, together with the rest of the war-torn country) to the ground zero of 1985 (the year in which, for the first time in almost three decades, Italian film production fell below the rate of 100 films made per year, as the culmination of a crisis that started in the mid-1970s). The chapter opens with an in-depth production history of I vampiri / Lust of the Vampire (Riccardo Freda, 1957), followed by an account of the 1958-1964 boom in the production of pepla, the historical-mythological adventures of the sword-and-sandal kind. Both cases (an isolated commercial failure the former; a short-lived box-office goldmine, or filone, the latter) are emblematic of the functioning of the Italian film industry between the early 1950s and the mid-1980s – a state-subsidised system mostly based on a constellation of medium, small and minuscule business ventures piggy-backing on popular genres/trends in the local and/or global film market.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgment My great thanks to Akira Iriye, Ernest May, Joseph Nye for their years of extraordinary mentoring, reflected, albeit imperfectly, in this piece and everything I write; to my friend Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, who has provided me with an incomparable education in the real-world workings of the entertainment industry, and with whom I am coauthoring a biography of producer Samuel Bronston; to Jonathan Rosenberg of Hunter College, Dr. John Trumpbour, and the members of the writers' group organized by Jonathan Soffer of Polytechnic University, all of whom generously offered invaluable editorial suggestions that enhanced this article in numerous ways; to the many interview subjects cited within this piece, who took time to respond to my queries; to Professor Nicholas Cull of USC's Annenberg School for Communications; to Thomas Schatz of the University of Texas and Frank Ninkovich of St. John's University for their general encouragement of my work; and to the staffs of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, the US National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Spanish General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State in Alcala de Henares, and the archive of the Spanish Ministry of Culture in Madrid for their aid and attention throughout my research. Notes Notes 1. See for example Fernando Termis Soto, Renunciando a todo: El Régimen franquista y los Estados Unidos desde 1945 hasta 1963 (Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Biblioteca Nueva, 2005); Boris N. Liedtke, Embracing a Dictatorship: U.S. relations with Spain, 1945–1953 (New York, St. Martin's, 1998); Arturo Jarque Íñiguez, Queremos esas Bases: El Acercamiento de Estados Unidos a la España de Franco (Alcalá de Henares, Centro de Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá, 1998); Antonio Marquina Barrio, España en la Politica de Suguridad Occidental: 1939–1986 (Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones del E.M.E., 1986); R. Richard Rubottom and J. Carter Murphy, Spain and the United States: since World War II (New York, Praeger, 1984); Arthur P. Whitaker, Spain and the Defense of the West: ally and liability (New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1961). 2. This will be briefly described below. For an in-depth examination, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's guest: the Franco regime's quest for rehabilitation and dollars after World War II via the promotion of U.S. tourism to Spain,' Diplomatic History, 30(3), June 2006. 3. See below in text. 4. For example, the future Spanish cult film auteurs Jess Franco and Paul Naschy. Jess Franco was an uncredited extra in Mike Todd's mammoth production Around the World in 80 Days (1956), served as an uncredited production assistant on King Vidor's Solomon and Sheba (1959), and was a second-unit director on Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1966). Paul Naschy had a bit role in Nicholas Ray's films King of Kings (1961) and 55 Days at Peking (1963). (See entries for Jesus Franco and Paul Naschy at the Encylopedia of Fantastic Film and Television Website at http://www.eofftv.com/names/f/fra/franco_jesus_main.htm, as well as the Internet Movie Database entries on Franco and Naschy at http://www.imdb.com). 5. Most notably in Anthony Mann's El Cid, 1961, produced by Samuel Bronston (see below in text). 6. For example in Jean Negulesco's The Pleasure Seekers, 1964. 7. This gigantism ran counter to the period's most forward-looking European cinema trends, the minimalist, low-budget Neo-Realist movement and its more-polished aesthetic successors in Italy and France's Nouvelle Vague. N.B. the late S. Frederick Gronich, the former vice-president of the Motion Picture Export Association of America [MPEA], was insistent that both the Neo-Realist and New Wave movements were underwritten by Hollywood funding, as part of the MPEA's program to meet Italian and French domestic film production quotas. Author interview with S. Frederick Gronich, Los Angeles, CA, 1996. 8. This point is the product of an ongoing colloquy between cultural historian John Trumpbour and the author. To be sure, plenty of grand-scale film-making took place during the early postwar period elsewhere in Europe, especially Britain and Italy. In the latter country, not only were there US epic productions like Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, and Cleopatra; there were also the more modestly budgeted but still visually sumptuous 'peplum' films, such as the two Steve Reeves Hercules film and The 300 Spartans. But the crucial difference was that, as far as we currently know, there was no official government political propaganda agenda at work in Britain or Italy concerning encouraging the production of certain cinematic subject matter. (N.B. I have had a hypothesis lingering in the background of my research for years concerning the British government in particular over some cinematic subject matter: World War II-themed and espionage films (such as those featuring super-spy James Bond) could have been seen by officials as good propaganda to place regularly before American audiences to remind them who their staunchest and most indispensable ally was, especially after the debacle of the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez Canal invasion in 1956, which placed the US and Britain at loggerheads. But I have not had the time to go on the research expedition to London to explore this possibility.) 9. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: the means to success in world politics (New York, Public Affairs, 2004), 5. 10. For a discussion of these anxieties, especially as they pertain to Europe, see for example Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's advance through 20th-century Europe (Cambridge, MA, Belknap Harvard, 2005), Richard H. Pells, Not Like Us: how Europeans have loved, hated, and transformed American culture since World War II (New York, Basic Books, 1997), Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Stephen Ricci (eds) Hollywood and Europe: economics, culture, national identity 1945–95 (London, British Film Institute Press, 1998); John Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European struggles for mastery of the global film industry, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ian Jarvie, Hollywood's Overseas Campaign: the North Atlantic movie trade, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992). For a general discussion of 'cultural imperialism,' the standard point of entry is John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism: a critical introduction (Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 11. For example, Fritz Lang, David Lean, Milos Forman, and John Woo, who brought with them to Hollywood such cinematic traditions as German Expressionism, English Romanticism, post-war Eastern European anti-authoritarianism, and Hong Kong's hyperkinetic ballets of stylized action. See Neal M. Rosendorf, 'Social and cultural globalization: concepts, history, and America's Role, in Joseph S. Nye and John D. Donahue (eds) Governance in a Globalizing World (Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 118–119. 12. Most notably that of Columbia Pictures in its defense of Fred Zinnemann's controversial film Behold a Pale Horse (1964). See below in text for a discussion of this episode. 13. One can perceive recent analogous behavior by American media toward the People's Republic of China, including Rupert Murdoch's blocking of the BBC in the mid-1990s from his Star satellite television network, which was being beamed into China, and the aid software companies Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have provided to the PRC in its efforts to control domestic access to reading and posting online content. See for example Zhao, ibid.; William Shawcross, 'Rupert Murdoch,' Time, October 25, 1999, online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/intl/article/0,9171,1107991025-33716-1,00.html; OpenNet Initiative, Internet Filtering in China in 2004–2005: a country study, online at http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/; Clive Thompson, 'Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem),' New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2006. 14. The divorcement decrees were designed to strip the major studios outright of approximately half of the more than 3100 theaters they controlled as of 1945. Michael Conant, 'The impact of the Paramount decrees,' in Tino Balio (ed.) The American Film Industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 347–348, 362–363. 15. As Business Week noted sardonically about potential movie-goers' viewing options, 'Set owners, millions of them, were not going to pay to see mediocre films; they could watch similar entertainment at home for nothing.' ('A Turn for the Bigger,' Business Week, November 14, 1953, p. 149.) This is not to say that inexpensively produced films, or films about modest subjects, were abandoned by Hollywood. For example, Marty, the story of a lonely Bronx butcher, filmed on a shoestring budget in black and white and scripted by television writer Paddy Chayefsky, won the 1955 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Tino Balio, United Artists: the company that changed the film industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 79–82. 16. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer attempted to carry on its in-house production into the mid-1950s but ultimately had to bow to Hollywood's changed economic climate. Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era (New York, Pantheon, 1988), 462. 17. Domestic critics decried the practice as 'runaway production.' 18. Britain's Eady Plan was perhaps the best-known and most lucrative of these schemes. 19. For a full discussion of the respective merits and programs of these overseas destinations for Hollywood production, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, The life and times of Samuel Bronston, builder of 'Hollywood in Madrid'; a study in the international scope and influence of American popular culture, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2000, chapter 5: 'Runaways, independents and blockbusters: Hollywood's shift toward foreign movie production in the 1950's and 1960's.' 20. See Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's Guest,' passim. 21. 'Anteproyecto de Plan Nacional de Turismo,' July 1952, p. 2, section 49.02, box 14415, general heading 'Cultura,' General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State, Alcala de Henares, Spain [General Archive Alcala]. 22. Carlos F. Heredero, Las Huellas del Tiempo: Cine espanol, 1951–1961 (Valencia, Archivo de la Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 1993), 29. 23. Trumpbour, passim. 24. US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, January 8, 1963, 'Efforts of Motion Picture Export Association of America to Persuade Spanish Government to Liberalize Restrictions on Distribution of United States Motion Pictures,' 852.452/1-863, Record Group 59, US Department of State Central Files [RG 59], US National Archives, College Park, Maryland [NA]. 25. 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' dated August 1960, p. 12, in box 28353, section 49.06, heading 'Cultura,' General Archive Alcala. 26. Paramount vigorously denied both the rumors and that it had subsequently pulled its punches in the final version—all the studio would admit to was that it had given a script draft to the Spanish Consul in San Francisco, whose suggestions for revisions, Paramount claimed, had been ignored utterly. ('Off the Hollywood Wire,' New York Times, February 14, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL. However, while there is no archival substantiation to date of State Department pressure on the producers, one reviewer offered this assessment at the time of the film's release: 'How about the fascists—there was all that talk about Franco interference with the script—do the fascists ever get mentioned? Ans[wer:] Never; every place the word 'fascist' appeared in [screenwriter] Dudley Nichols' script, Paramount substituted the word 'Nationalist.' Furthermore, they call the Loyalists 'Republicans' all the way through it, too so it's all pretty confusing.' Still, even with evident tampering, 'The net effect of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' can scarcely be called pro-Franco,' the reviewer conceded. (John T. McManus, 'The Tongue-Tied 'Bell' Tolls Dully,' PM Reviews, July 15, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL.) In an ironic coda, when Hilton Hotels opened the Castellana Hilton in Madrid in 1953, one of the American celebrities on hand for the dedication festivities was Gary Cooper, who had portrayed the anti-fascist Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls a decade earlier. See 'Old Cowhand,' Time, July 27, 1953, p. 17. 27. 'Spanish Censure Hollywood Films: Academy of Medicine Also Finds Variety of Faults in American Psychiatry Methods,' Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1950, p. 28, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry 1950s' file, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [MHL], Beverly Hills, CA. 28. Paul Preston, Franco: a biography (New York, Basic Books, 1994), 417–418; Aurora Bosch and M. Fernanda del Rincón, Dreams in a dictatorship: Hollywood and Franco's Spain, 1939–1956, in Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May (eds) 'Here, There and Everywhere': the foreign politics of American popular culture (Hanover, NH, and London, University Press of New England, 2000), 100. N.B. While the chapter cited in the latter volume contains some useful information on the Franco regime's policy concerning Hollywood films that sought Spanish distribution, it says nothing about Hollywood productions in Spain or the regime's policies toward them. 29. Heredero, 20. 30. See for example memorandum from the US Embassy, Madrid to the State Department, 'Motion Picture Association of America: Distribution of American Films in Spain,' dated November 14, 1957; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'MOTION PICTURES [sic]; Government Measures to Support Spanish Motion Picture Industry', dated March 11, 1958; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'New Agreement Between the Spanish Government and the Motion Picture Export Association of America, Inc. (MPEAA),' dated March 26, 1959, all in folder, 852.452/1-3056, box 4621, RG 59, NA; Antonio Valles Copeiro del Villar, Historia de la Politica de Fomento del Cine espanol (Valencia, Filmoteca, Generalitat Valenciana, Institut Valencia d'Arts Esceniques, Cinematografia i Musica, Conselleria de Cultura, Educacio i Ciencia, 1992), 72. 31. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 4, in folder 852.44/2-2660, Box 2583, RG 59, NA. 32. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 22. 33. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 34. 34. The one unalloyed masterpiece of Spanish cinema during this period was Luis Bunuel's Viridiana (1960), in which the Franco regime got far more than it had bargained for when it momentarily welcomed back the renowned director from his Mexican exile and received a brilliant exercise in anti-Catholic blasphemy in return. The film, which among other things depicts the repeated rape of a saintly nun, would win the Palm d'Or at Cannes, which theoretically might burnish Spain's reputation as the source of quality motion pictures. The regime, which fashioned itself as the defender of the Catholic Church, did not see it that way and banned the film and banished the film-maker. 35. Letter from Gwynne Ornstein (wife of George Ornstein and daughter of Mary Pickford) to Mary Pickford, January 11, 1961, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Herrick Special Collections, MHL; 'Bud Ornstein Gets Honor From Spain,' Hollywood Reporter, May 9, 1968, 'George Ornstein' clipping file, MHL. Ornstein would later transfer to London, where, as UA's head of European operations, he would help shepherd both the early James Bond films and the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night into production. 36. For the history of United Artists, see Balio, United Artists. 37. John Cabrera, an Anglo-Spanish cinematographer who was then employed by Technicolor in the UK and assigned to Decameron Nights, recalls that the film crew was overwhelmingly British, with a few Spaniards working in minor technical positions; Spanish production facilities in the early 1950s were of a low quality, and Spanish technicians 'were behind the times.' Author interview via telephone with John Cabrera, Jan. 2006. 38. Ibid. 39. 'Spanish Film Market Expanding—Fregonese,' Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1954, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry' file, MHL. 40. Untitled New York Times, August 1, 1954, in the clipping file, MHL. on in an was and had even offered the of his for But still on a New This Week Magazine, 4, both in the clipping file, MHL. from of of Industry and to the of and Ministry of and January in the file, Ministry of all Spanish government in by of being in Spain by Ornstein in the folder, Robert Collection, Arts Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA. February 1955 there was placed before the at the Madrid, the production of Robert the will later in El and in Spain February 25, in the clipping file, in Spain,' Film in Picture Industry' clipping file, MHL. for November 14, in the clipping file, MHL. New York Times, April for November 14, for November 14, in Spain for American Hollywood Reporter, November in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry MHL. of article by 'For of in folder, box 14, Collection, Library Special Collections, University of Los Angeles, CA. Letter from to General of and Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of from March 9, 1956, in and file, Ministry of from of Ministry of Industry and to the General of and Ministry of and January 1956, in and file, Ministry of Letter from the of and to the of the March 15, 1956, in and file, Ministry of in by in Spain,' October 1956, in and the clipping file, MHL. from the General of and to the of and April 27, 1956, in and file, Ministry of y el y de April in and file, Ministry of y April in and file, Ministry of y from the General of and to the Films May 25, 1956, in and file, Ministry of would be to script on one of his most films, the (1959), in to meet with the Franco regime's This motion which was filmed on in depicts the of to from a by a In to a Spanish for the film, in Spanish to which the regime on the that it Catholic 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' from US Embassy, Madrid, to the US Department of State, February 8, 1960, in folder box 2583, RG 59, NA. from Spanish de June in and file, Ministry of telephone with of the 1996. the of his film to the Hollywood by writer his in a Letter from George Ornstein to Mary Pickford, May 1959, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Special Collections, MHL. N.B. Anthony was the director of producer with 'For the of they had not for Spain and the 1960, p. 4, in file, Film Time, April 1959, p. from George Ornstein to the Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of and For in May 27, 1959, to from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of Letter from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of George The Film June 9, 1960, in 'George Ornstein' file, MHL. 'The of the New York Times, April in clipping file, MHL. James the US State Department on in when the producer sought in the United from James to American June 28, in folder, James D. Park, 72. Bronston to Paul for 23, in Paul clipping file, Hollywood Reporter, November 1958; to Los Angeles Times, October 27, all in Paul clipping file, MHL; of and John Paul October in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. US of New York November National Archives and Administration of as by 23, 1953, in of clipping file, MHL. from the as noted 'runaway took place within which with a film of which foreign could John Author interview with Paul Jr., former vice-president of Samuel Bronston CA, Paul Jr., 'The Madrid Movie of of M. 1, of Frederick M. October both in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. November John Franco this at in part as a the to the Spanish whom he John Preston, in Paul Movie by New York Times, August 1958; Paul Los Angeles Times both in Paul film clipping MHL. by Paul in Paul film clipping MHL. Bronston August 9, clipping file, Variety Los Angeles, thanks to Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, with whom I am a biography of Samuel Bronston of Texas Press, in for his aid in clipping of John J. the of in the United States from to at S. January 1960, in clipping file, Variety of see and New August p. see as well to U.S. for for Italian Motion Picture August p. which the Italian to to in Industry clipping folder, MHL.) see 'Hollywood for a be Motion Picture October 2, p. by October both in Industry clipping folder, MHL. See 1. in D. would to Spain and be a with See in de folder, Archives of the Ministry of Author Bronston CA, Dr. William Bronston CA, and Bronston London, 1996. John would in through the the most in Catholic in among them the of the for the of would be in by John's Paul in on the of the to online at The King of Kings script portrayed and as to from while was in historian the of the who were a in at the time of Ministry (see A of the (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, of Distribution to be by Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1960, in clipping file, MHL; John shepherd of the world John would Franco's at the of the in the would ultimately

In order to try to fill a gap in the existing literature on audiovisual translation, the general aim of this interdisciplinary project is to offer a diachronic study of film subtitling, mainly focusing on the Italian cinema distributed in the UK during the post-war period. More specifically, after having introduced in Chapter 1 the background as well as the disciplinary motivations for the proposed research, which will be further discussed in Chapter 2, this work may be divided into two main sections. The first one starts in Chapter 3, which traces the evolution of subtitling as translation practice, with a special focus on changing conventions at technical and linguistic level (punctuation and other conventions), from the silent era to the arrival of sound, thus creating a bridge between AVTS and Film Studies in a diachronic perspective. This link will be further strengthen in Chapter 4, which explores Italian cinema during the post-war period, contextualising the titles produced in those years within the social, cultural, political and economic context. The distribution of Italian films produced after the Second World War within the UK market will then be explored, with special emphasis on the choice of audiovisual translation modality adopted to distribute them within the British market, and on the preference of subtitling over dubbing for the so-called Italian art films. This first section, in addition to having explored film subtitling and Italian 12 cinema in a diachronic perspective, drawing on both Audiovisual Translation Studies and Film Studies, has also served as basis for the second section of the present work: the construction and analysis of a corpus of Italian films distributed in the UK, comprising three different subtitled versions for each title, with a 46-year time span, on average: Il Miracolo (Roberto Rossellini 1949), Ladri di Biciclette (Vittorio De Sica 1949); La Strada (Federico Fellini 1952), and L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni 1960). Chapter 5 illustrates then the film corpus: the criteria for the collection of filmic materials, the selected source of data, the procedure for data collection, as well as the process of data transcription and extraction; the films under scrutiny will be illustrated in full details. Chapter 6 presents a descriptive and mainly qualitative analyses of the four films, and corresponding different versions, focusing on three main ‘dimensions’: technical (layout and spatial constraints), linguistic (punctuation marks and other conventions), and translation dimensions (the analysis of cultural elements). The decision to focus on these aspects precisely stems from the study carried out in the first section of the work, and specifically:  the changing practices and conventions which have affected film subtitling from the silent cinema era to modern times (Chapter 3);  the context in which these titles have been conceived and produced, determining their strict bound with the geographical, ethnographic, and socio-political national context (see Chapter 4);  the context in which these titles have been distributed and consumed, 13 determining and influencing British viewer’s habits and expectations (see Chapter 5). Chapter 7 will finally provide with general and preliminary conclusions stemming from the studies carried out in the two main sections of the present work, also proposing further possibilities to expand the proposed research. Finally, after having listed the bibliographical and filmic references, the thesis concludes with the appendices, which contain the transcription of the film corpus: appendix I includes the transcription of the dialogues of the four films; and appendix II comprises the transcription of the subtitles from the 16 mm and 35 mm film prints, the VHS tapes, and the DVDs.

This article draws on a broad range of under-explored historical sources to document the career trajectories of the women who worked in the Italian film industry between 1930 and 1944. Challenging established histories that normalise male dominance in Italian cinema during and after Mussolini's regime, the article sheds light on women's overlooked contribution to Italy's sound film industry and explores the multilayered, shifting dimension of their precarious and gendered labour. Engaging with key questions raised by historians of Italian Fascism and by feminist research in film and media history, the article delineates intersectional barriers to film employment faced by women in the years of the dictatorship and points to their historical legacy.

This paper examines the evolution and effects of the tax credits systems introduced in the Italian film industry. We have studied the economic and juridical roots of State subsidies, enabling the readers to understand their legitimacy and providing them with the main international best practices. An empirical analysis is performed, assessing whether recent measures introduced in Italy have influenced the domestic theatrical distribution of a sample of 399 Italian films released in the last 4 years. Tax incentives are found to have a positive relation to the number of prints distributed. However, direct contributions do not have a statistical influence on theatrical distribution, supporting the recent wave of reforms aimed at shifting the mix of resources from direct to indirect public support.

In conclusion to our 2013 book, Reframing Italy, in which we considered new trends in Italian women’s filmmaking, we broach the topic of the marginalisation and stereotyping of women in a highly patriarchal film industry and the problems involved in articulating an aesthetics that speaks directly to female audiences. While our book highlights the exceptional, often invisible, production by Italian women filmmakers, for most women filmmakers in Italy their opportunities in the film industry are still limited and their films appear against all odds. In our contribution to this volume, we expand on our previous work and focus more directly on the ongoing struggle for gender equality in the Italian film industry. A recent 2017 report by DEA (Donne e audiovisivo) confirmed our own findings that Italian women directors find themselves less likely to attract funding or to gain the confidence of producers. In fact, the study shows that only 12% of public financing for films goes to women, 21% of the films produced by the state agency RAI are directed by women, and only 9.2% of the films directed by women reach mainstream movie houses.

The first forty years of cinema in the United States, from the development and commercialization of modern motion picture technology in the mid-1890s to the full blossoming of sound-era Hollywood during the early 1930s, represents one of the most consequential periods in the history of the medium. It was a time of tremendous artistic and economic transformation, including but not limited to the storied transition from silent motion pictures to “the talkies” in the late 1920s. Though the nomenclature of the silent era implies a relatively unified period in film history, the years before the transition to sound saw a succession of important changes in film artistry and its means of production, and film historians generally regard the epoch as divided into at least three separate and largely distinct temporalities. During the period of early cinema, which lasted about a decade from the medium’s emergence in the mid-1890s through the middle years of the new century’s first decade, motion pictures existed primarily as a novelty amusement presented in vaudeville theatres and carnival fairgrounds. Film historians Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault have famously defined the aesthetic of this period as a “cinema of attractions,” in which the technology of recording and reproducing the world, along with the new ways in which it could frame, orient, and manipulate time and space, marked the primary concerns of the medium’s artists and spectators. A transitional period followed from around 1907 to the later 1910s when changes in the distribution model for motion pictures enabled the development of purpose-built exhibition halls and led to a marked increase in demand for the entertainment. On a formal and artistic level, the period saw a rise in the prominence of the story film and widespread experimentation with new techniques of cinematography and editing, many of which would become foundational to later cinematic style. The era also witnessed the introduction and growing prominence of feature-length filmmaking over narrative shorts. The production side was marked by intensifying competition between the original American motion picture studios based in and around New York City, several of which attempted to cement their influence by forming an oligopolistic trust, and a number of upstart “independent” West Coast studios located around Los Angeles. Both the artistic and production trends of the transitional period came to a head during the classical era that followed, when the visual experimentation of the previous years consolidated into the “classical style” favored by the major studios, and the competition between East Coast and West Coast studios resolved definitively in favor of the latter. This was the era of Hollywood’s ascendance over domestic filmmaking in the United States and its growing influence over worldwide film markets, due in part to the decimation of the European film industry during World War I. After nearly a decade of dominance, the Hollywood studio system was so refined that the advent of marketable synchronized sound technology around 1927 produced relatively few upheavals among the coterie of top studios. Rather, the American film industry managed to reorient itself around the production of talking motion pictures so swiftly that silent film production in the United States had effectively ceased at any appreciable scale by 1929. Artistically, the early years of “the talkies” proved challenging, as filmmakers struggled with the imperfections of early recording technology and the limitations they imposed on filmmaking practice. But filmgoing remained popular in the United States even during the depths of the Great Depression, and by the early 1930s a combination of improved technology and artistic adaptation led to such a marked increase in quality that many film historians regard the period to be the beginning of Hollywood’s Golden Era. With a new voluntary production code put in place to respond to criticism of immorality in Hollywood fare, the American film industry was poised by the early 1930s to solidify its prominent position in American cultural life.