Maria Fiore

We're back in Italy at the 29th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. One of the sections I'm curious about is Beautiful Youth: Renato Castellani. The Italian film director and screenwriter made that wonderful young love trilogy of Neorealism: Sotto il sole di Roma/Under the Sun of Rome (1948), È primavera.../Springtime in Italy (1950) and Due soldi di speranza/Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952). In the latter, screened today, the female lead is played by little-known Maria Fiore (1935–2004). The Italian film actress appeared in 50 films between 1952 and 1999. Throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s, she played in many romantic comedies and musicals, often set in Naples.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., Firenze, no 2917. Photo: Cines. Publicity still for Tempi nostri - Zibaldone n. 2/A Slice of Life (Alessandro Blasetti, Paul Paviot, 1954).

A determined young woman

Maria Fiore was born Jolanda Di Fiore in Rome in 1935. She made an impressive film debut at 17 in the neo-realistic masterpiece Due soldi di speranza/Two Cents Worth of Hope (Renato Castellani, 1952), the third in director Castellani's young love trilogy. The story concerns the romance between the strong-willed and free-spirited Carmela (Fiore) and Antonio (Vincenzo Musolino). At the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, the film shared the Grand Prix with Orson Welles’ Othello (1952).

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “The ardor is one-sided at first, but Carmela is a determined young woman, willing to scale and conquer any obstacle in pursuing her heart's desire. Once he's ‘hooked,’ Antonio scurries from job to job to prove his financial viability. Faced with their parents's hostility, Carmela and Antonio symbolically shed themselves of all responsibilities to others in a climactic act of stark-naked bravado.”

Fiore then co-starred with Sophia Loren in the drama-comedy La domenica della buona gente/Good Folk’s Sunday (Anton Giulio Majano, 1953) and played the title role opposite Henri Vidal in Scampolo 53 (Giorgio Bianchi, 1953), one of the many film versions of the Dario Niccodemi play.

The next year, she played an important supporting part in Carosello napoletano/Neapolitan Carousel (Ettore Giannini, 1954), the first major Italian musical of the post-war era. Léonide Massine starred as Antonio Petito, a notable Pulcinella performer, and an important figure of Neapolitan theatre in the 19th century. The film was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.

During the next decade, Fiore starred in many romantic comedies and musicals, often set in Naples. Titles include Graziella (Giorgio Bianchi, 1955) with Jean-Pierre Mocky, I pappagalli/The Parrots (Bruno Paolinelli, 1955) starring Aldo Fabrizi and Alberto Sordi, Serenata a Maria/Serenade for Maria (Luigi Capuano, 1957), and Malafemmena (Armando Fizzarotti, 1957). These films were popular in Italy, but less known abroad. Later, when the Peplum genre became popular, she appeared credited as Joan Simons in epics like Ercole l'invincibile/Hercules the Invincible (Alvaro Mancori, 1964).


Italian postcard by Levibrom, Milano.

Rambo's revenge

Maria Fiore disappeared from the big screen in the mid-1960s to concentrate on the dubbing firm she had set up.

She returned to popular success through hit TV mini-series such as Joe Petrosino (Daniele D'Anza, 1972) with Adolfo Celi, Accadde a Lisbona/It happened in Lisbon (Daniele D'Anza, 1974) with Paolo Stoppa, L'ultimo aereo per Venezia/The last plane to Venice (Daniele D'Anza, 1977) with Massimo Girotti, Quei 36 gradini/Those 36 steps (Luigi Perelli, 1984) with Gérard Blain, Little Roma (Francesco Massaro, 1988) and Pronto Soccorso/First Aid (Francesco Massaro, 1990-1992).

In the cinema she could be seen in the anthology film Se permettete parliamo di donne/Let's Talk About Women (Ettore Scola, 1964) with Vittorio Gassman, and the crime film L'onorata famiglia - Uccidere è cosa nostra/The Big Family (Tonino Ricci, 1973).

In 1975, Fiore played a supporting role in the Poliziotteschi film Il giustiziere sfida la città/Syndicate Sadists (Umberto Lenzi, 1975), starring Joseph Cotten and Tomas Milian. This film, also known as Rambo's Revenge and One Just Man, was one of director Lenzi's many efforts in the crime thriller genre. Tomas Milián plays Rambo, an ex-cop who seeks revenge against two powerful crime families who were responsible for the murder of his friend. The film predates Ted Kotcheff's First Blood (1982), which introduced audiences to the John Rambo of author David Morrell by seven years. Milian read Morrell's novel while flying from the U.S. to Rome. Loving the story he tried to talk some Italian producers into making a film out of it, with him starring as John Rambo. Nothing came of this, but he was allowed to use the Rambo moniker in the next Poliziottesco he starred in.

Fiore’s last film was E insieme vivremo tutte le stagioni/And Together We Will Live All Seasons (Gianni Minello, 1999), starring Franco Citti. In 2004, Maria Fiore died in Rome of lung cancer. She was 68.


Final scene of Due soldi di speranza/Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952). Source: Ugo Tramontano (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and Italian), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 19 March 2024.

Alida Valli

This week, we're in Bologna at Il Cinema Ritrovato. Our favourite venue is the giant screen in Piazza Maggiore where we will experience tonight "the extravagant cinematic inventions of The Third Man" - according to the Festival website. Just like her co-stars Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard, the female Italian star of this British classic is unforgettable... Strikingly beautiful Alida Valli (1921-2006) started as Italy’s sweetheart of the early 1940s. She fascinated audiences with her flawless porcelain face, her dark, voluptuous hair and her green, expressive eyes, but also with her ability to simultaneously hide and reveal a character's thoughts and emotions. In a career that spanned seven decades, she appeared in more than 110 films including such classics as Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954), Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido (1957) and Bernardo Bertolucci's Strategia del ragno (1970). And The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949).


Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F. Edit.), no. 4240. Photo: I.C.I. / Vaselli.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 210, 1941-1944. Photo: Difu.


Italian postcard by Aser, Roma, no. 250. Photo: Pesce.


Still from The Third Man (1949) with Alida Valli and Joseph Cotten. Source: Dr. Macro's.


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1683. Photo: publicity still for Senso (Luchino Visconti, 1954).


Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 49474.

Cinécitta

Alida Valli was born as Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger in Pola, a town located in Italy’s Istria region (now Pula, the town currently is part of Croatia) in 1921. Her father, Baron Gino Altenburger, was a philosophy professor and part-time music critic of aristocratic Austrian descent (Alida’s title was Baroness of Marckenstein and Frauenberg) and her mother, Silvia Oberecker della Martina, was a piano teacher of mixed German-Italian parentage (some sources state that she was of Slovenian-Italian descent). Not long after Alida's birth, the family moved to Como, where Alida attended a local school.

Following her father’s death, she and her mother went to Rome where Alida studied acting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC), the film academy set up by Benito Mussolini. In 1936, at the age of 15, Alida Altenburger made her first film appearance in the Cinecittà studios with a bit part in I Due sergenti/The Two Sergeants (Enrico Guazzoni, 1936) starring Gino Cervi.

Her surname was changed to the more Italian-sounding Valli (supposedly found by chance in the phone book). In the following years, she often starred in the escapist Telefoni Bianchi productions – the ‘white telephone’ comedies and melodramas always set in very luxurious and wealthy environments.

In 1937, she appeared in the comedy L'amor mio non muore.../A Night in May (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1937), in which she played opposite the Neapolitan acting family Eduardo, Peppino, and Titina DeFilippo.

Her first big success came with the comedies Mille lire al mese/One Thousand Lire per Month (Max Neufeld, 1939) as a beauty with too many worshippers including Osvaldo Valenti, and Assenza ingiustificata/Absence Without Leave (Max Neufeld, 1939), as a young woman who decides to go back to school without the knowledge of her doctor husband (Amedeo Nazzari).

She proved her versatility with the costume drama Manon Lescaut (1940, Carmine Gallone), based on a novel by Abbé Prevost, in which she played the title role opposite matinee idol Vittorio De Sica. Valli’s popularity in the Italian film industry was now near its peak. A poll in the late 1930s had placed her behind only Assia Noris as the most popular female star in the country.


Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1939.


Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1941. Photo: Venturini.


Italian postcard by Zincografica, Firenze. Photo: Scalera Film / Era Film, Roma. Publicity still for Noi Vivi/We the Living (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942).


Italian postcard. With Fosco Giachetti.


Italian postcard by ASER (A. Scaramaglia Ed. Roma), no. 109.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 20750. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italy's Sweetheart

By the early 1940s, Alida Valli was top of the bill and became known as ‘Italy’s Sweetheart’. Italcine signed her to a five-year contract. She won an acting award at the Venice Film Festival for Piccolo mondo antico/Old-Fashioned World (Mario Soldati, 1941) with Massimo Serato, about a woman traumatized by her child's death.

During the Second World War, another major success followed with Stasera niente di nuovo/Nothing New This Evening (Mario Mattoli, 1942), the story of a prostitute who refuses help from the reporter (Carlo Ninchi) who loves her. In the film Valli gets to sing Giovanno D’Anzi’s massive hit Ma l’amore no.

For the 19-year-old star, fame and adulation brought both riches and difficulties. Next she played a counter-revolutionary opposite Fosco Giachetti and Rossano Brazzi in Noi Vivi - Addio Kira/We the Living (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942), based on Ayn Rand's anti-Communist novel. The films were successful, and the public easily realized that they were as much against Fascism as Communism. After several weeks, however, the films were pulled from theatres as the German and Italian governments, which abhorred communism, found out the story also carried an anti-fascist message.

With the Nazi push into Italy, she briefly left film making and hid in a friend's apartment to avoid recruitment into propaganda efforts. Others who joined her there were the jazz composer and surrealist painter Oscar De Mejo, who became her husband in 1944, and jazz pianist Piero Piccioni, who would much later become her lover.

After the war it was the title role in Eugenia Grandet/Eugenie Grandet (Mario Soldati, 1947), an adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s novel, that marked her return to form. As the suffering Eugenia, she won a best actress Nastro d’Argento award from the Union of Italian Film Journalists, and caught the eye of independent Hollywood producer David O. Selznick.

Selznick signed her to a contract, and groomed her for a major English-language career. She was given a screen billing with just her surname - Valli - to recall the European glamour of ‘Garbo’. However, she was plunked in mediocre fare and, with a language barrier, had a catatonic presence that did not showcase the emotion she brought to her earlier Italian period. American audiences yawned at Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), in which she was murder suspect Maddalena Paradine defended by Gregory Peck, and The Miracle of the Bells (Irving Pichel, 1948) with Frank Sinatra, in which she played a dead actress whose story is told in flashback.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 22820. Photo: I.C.I. / Pesce.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3783/1, 1941-1944. Photo: DIFU.


Italian postcard. Photo: RKO.


Dutch postcard. Photo: RKO Radio Films.


Dutch postcard.


Vintage postcard by IBIS, no. 137.

A Classic Of Unremitting Political Cynicism

With Selznick's approval, Alida Valli left for England where she was cast as a mysterious Czech refugee Anna Schmidt wanted by the Russians in post-war Vienna in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). Anna is the devoted lover of Harry Lime (Orson Welles), a racketeer in the black-market world.

The Third Man has since become a classic of unremitting political cynicism, aided by an unexpected zither soundtrack and unforgettable, powerful scenes. One of the best is the final shot in a cemetery, which shows her walking directly past the bumbling American hero (Joseph Cotten), a pulp novelist who, despite all evidence to the contrary, wants to view her character as a damsel in distress.

Valli returned permanently to Europe in 1951 to star opposite Jean Marais in Les Miracles n’ont lieu qu’une fois/Miracles Only Happen Once (Yves Allégret, 1951). It is the story of two enamoured students who, after being separated by the war, are reunited ten years later only to discover that they have changed.

Luchino Visconti offered her the lead role in Senso/Livia (Luchino Visconti, 1954), a beautiful period piece of romance and betrayal based on a novel by Camillo Boito. Set in mid-1800s Venice during the Risorgimento, the film revolves around a Venetian countess torn between nationalistic feelings and an adulterous love for an officer (Farley Granger) of the occupying Austrian forces. Her passionate performance is considered by some the apex of her career, and won her a Best Actress Crystal Star from the French Film Academy. (Senso’s loss at the 1954 Venice Film Festival - the Golden Lion for Best Film went to Renato Castellani’s Romeo and Juliet - caused a furore).


Italian postcard. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F. Edit.), no 2220. Photo: RKO Radio.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 503. Photo: R.K.O. Radio.


German postcard by Wilhelm Schulze-Witteburg Graphischer Betrieb (WS-Druck), Wanne Eickel. Photo: Deutsche Commerz Film GmbH. Publicity still of Jean Marais and Alida Valli in Les Miracles n'ont lieu qu'une fois/Miracles Only Happen Once (Yves Allégret, 1951).


Vintage Postcard, no. 952. Publicity still for Ultimo incontro/Last Meeting (Gianni Franciolini, 1951) with Jean-Pierre Aumont.


Italian postcard by Rotocalco Dagnino, Torino. Photo: Lux Film. Alida Valli and Farley Granger as countess Livia Serpieri and Lt. Franz Mahler in Luchino Visconti's historical film Senso (1954).


Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F. Edit.), no. 2925. Photo: Titanus.

Sex and Drugs Scandal

As her career was beginning to pick up steam again, Alida Valli became involved in a sex and drugs scandal following the mysterious death of a 20-year-old fashion model named Wilma Montesi, whose body was found on a beach near Rome. Prolonged investigations resulted, involving sensational allegations of drugs and sex orgies in Roman society. Among the accused – all of whom were acquitted, leaving the case unsolved – was Valli's lover, jazz musician Piero Piccioni (son of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs). Alida Valli was divorced from Oscar De Mejo in 1952, and she claimed that she and Piccioni were staying at a villa in Capri at the time of the death of Montesi. This was a factor in his acquittal at the trial.

The scandal inspired Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (1960). In 1957 Valli once again made a glorious come-back with her role in another classic of the European cinema, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido/The Cry (1957) with Steve Cochran. She played a weary and impoverished woman who rejects her working-class lover.

In Italy, she was also well-known for her stage appearances. She had easily moved from ingénue to vivid character roles. In 1956, she made her stage début, starring under the direction of her future husband Giancarlo Zagni at Palermo’s Teatro Biondo in Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, William Archibald’s The Innocents, and Luigi Pirandello’s L’uomo, la bestia e la virtù/The Man, the Beast and Virtue. She was to appear in more than thirty plays in the next four decades.

Among her later films were La Grande strada azzurra/The Wide Blue Road (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1957) starring Yves Montand, the horror masterpiece Les Yeux sans visage/Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960), Une Aussi longue absence/The Long Absence (Henri Colpi, 1962), Ophelia (Claude Chabrol, 1963) with Juliette Mayniel, El hombre de papel/The Paper Man (Ismael Rodriguez, 1963), Edipo re/Oedipus Rex (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1967) with Silvana Mangano, La prima notte di quiete/The Professor (Valerio Zurlini, 1972), starring Alain Delon, and La Chair de l'orchidée/Flesh of the Orchid (Patrice Chéreau, 1975), starring Charlotte Rampling.

She worked three times with Bernardo Bertolucci, in La strategia del ragno/The Spider's Stratagem (1970), Novecento/1900 (1976), and La Luna/Luna (1979). She also worked with such horror masters as Mario Bava in La Casa dell'esorcismo/The House of Exorcism (1973) and Dario Argento in Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980).

More recent were her roles in Il Lungo silenzio/The Long Silence (1993, Margaretha von Trotta) and A Month by the Lake (John Irvin, 1995). Her final film role was in Semana Santa/Angel of Death (Pepe Danquart, 2002), with Mira Sorvino.

In 2006, Alida Valli died in Rome at the age of 84. She had two sons with Oscar De Mejo, Carlo De Mejo and Lorenzo 'Larry' De Mejo. Her grandson Pierpaolo De Mejo is an actor and director, who made the documentary Come diventai Alida Valli/How I Became Alida Valli (2008) about his grandmother.


Trailer for The Third Man (1949). Source: Britmovies (YouTube).


Trailer for Senso (1954). Source: The Criterion Collection (YouTube).


Trailer for Il Grido/The Cry (1957). Source: Danios 12345 (YouTube).


Trailer for Suspiria (1977). Source: Oliver Gašpar (YouTube).

Sources: Michael Plass (Alida Valli Net) (German), Adam Bernstein (Washington Post), Andre Soares (Alternative Film Guide), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, Reel Classics, and IMDb.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Yes, this week, we're back in Italy for the 29th Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna! One of this edition's sections is Technicolor & Co. It is a rediscovery of the original colour of film with a special celebration of Technicolor, which in 2015 turns 100! The section includes the last film made in Technicolor, The Thin Red Line (1998) by Terrence Malick, and the digital restoration of Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939) in 3D, an ‘impossible’ restoration of a film that was not originally conceived in three dimensions. And today, there is that wonderful classic The Thief of Bagdad (1941) by Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell and Tim Whelan. Alas, not all our postcards are in Technicolor.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2011. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies, 1940) with June Deprez as the Princess and Conrad Veidt as Jaffar. Vivien Leigh was originally cast in the role of the Princess, but when, in late 1938, she won the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Producer Alexander Korda gave the role to Duprez.

The best Arabian Nights adventure ever

There have been several film versions of the story of the good-natured young thief of ancient Bagdad (as it was once spelled). Raoul Walsh made the first, silent, rendering of Thief of Bagdad in 1924, starring Douglas Fairbanks. Still a marvellously entertaining film.

But the best Arabian Nights adventure ever is the 1940's Technicolor version of The Thief of Bagdad. It has a startling, magical panoply of top quality special effects, which still work their charm after more than seventy years, a stellar cast and wonderfully catchy music. The Thief of Bagdad is simply one of the best fantasy films ever made. But who was the director?

Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "Essentially behind (the original director Ludwig) Berger's back, British director Michael Powell was brought in to shoot various scenes - and Powell's scheduled work grew in amount and importance whilst, in the meantime, Korda himself did his best to undercut Berger on his own set; and while publicly siding with Berger on the issue of the music, he also undercut Berger's chosen composer (Oscar Straus) by bringing in Miklos Rozsa and putting him into an office directly adjacent to Berger's with a piano, to work on a score. Eventually, Berger was persuaded to walk away from the project, and American filmmaker Tim Whalen, who had just finished work on another Korda-produced movie (Q Planes) was brought in to help augment Powell's work."

Producer Alexander Korda was so demanding that he went through six directors during the production of The Thief of Bagdad, including his brother Zoltan Korda and leading art director William Cameron Menzies. For the special effects, from a magic flying carpet to the gargantuan genie who pops out of a bottle with a tornado-like black swirl, two men were responsible: Lawrence W. Butler and Tom Howard. Both had long and distinguished careers in technical wizardry.

Bruce Eder: "Accounts by those involved have varied across the decades, but most maintained that hardly anything directed by Berger made the final cut; the film is considered a prime example of Powell's early output, displaying the wit, flair, and stylish camerawork that would inform his subsequent work."


German collectors card by Küno's Film-Foto in the series Der Dieb von Bagdad, no. 1, presented by Sparkasse bank. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940) with Sabu as Abu.


German collectors card by Küno's Film-Foto in the series Der Dieb von Bagdad, no. 2, presented by Sparkasse bank. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940) with John Justin as Ahmad and Sabu as Abu.

A genie with an attitude

The Thief of Bagdad stars Sabu as the boy thief, Abu, the debuting John Justin as the dreamily in love prince Ahmad and young up-and-coming starlet June Duprez as the lovely princess sought by Ahmad and pursued by the evil vizier, Jaffar, played by a sinister Conrad Veidt. Rex Ingram plays the giant genie in the bottle who has an equally massive attitude.

The story focusses on Prince Ahmad, the rightful King of Bagdad. The idealistic prince wants to slum it amongst his people for a while to check things out. But the evil Vizier Jaffar takes his chance to imprison the beggar-prince and seize the throne.

Ahmad is cast into the palace dungeon where he meets Abu, the best thief in all Bagdad. Together they escape and make their way to Basra where Ahmad falls in love with the beautiful Princess.

However, Jaffar also journeys to Basra, for he desires the Princess. Her father, the Sultan (Miles Malleson, who also wrote the screenplay), is fascinated by the magical mechanical flying horse Jaffar offers and agrees to the proposed marriage. Upon hearing the news, the Princess, by now deeply in love with Ahmad, runs away.

The prince and thief are haunted by Jaffar. He magically blinds Ahmad and turns Abu into a dog. The spell can only be broken if Jaffar holds the Princess in his arms.

It's just the start of Ahmad and Abu's dazzling adventures that involve an all-seeing magic jewel, a giant spider, a flying carpet and that massive Djinn in a bottle.


German collectors card by Küno's Film-Foto in the series Der Dieb von Bagdad, no. 3 presented by Sparkasse bank. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940) with Sabu.


German collectors card by Küno's Film-Foto in the series Der Dieb von Bagdad, no. 4, presented by Sparkasse bank. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940) with Rex Ingram as the Djinn.

The tops of the actresses' costumes had to be buttoned up

Filming of The Thief of Bagdad began at London's Denham Studios, which had just merged with J. Arthur Rank's nearby Pinewood Studios.

Because of the Blitz, the production had to be relocated to Hollywood. There was such a long break in production, Sabu's early scenes had to be re-shot because he had grown several inches.

When filming began in the US, the stricter censorship codes of the Hays Office there were applied. One of the most obvious differences between the scenes shot in the UK and those filmed in the USA is that the tops of the actresses' costumes were buttoned up all the way to satisfy the Hays Office. That kind of clue makes it easier to identify the US-shot scenes than trying to spot differences in the sets.

The film won three Oscars: Production design by William Cameron Menzies and Vincent Korda, Cinematography by George Perinal and Special effects by Osmond Borradaile . Furthermore one nomination for the evocative and oriental musical score by Miklos Rozsa.


Trailer for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940). Source: Plamen Plamenov (YouTube).

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Il Cinema Ritrovato 2015, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Magali Noël (1931-2015)

Last Tuesday, 23 June 2015, Turkish-French actress and singer Magali Noël has died. She acted in French and Italian films between 1951 and 2002. The sexy actress was an object of desire in three masterpieces of Federico Fellini. As a singer she had one of the first French Rock & Roll hits, which was forbidden for a long time because of its risqué lyrics. Magali Noël was 83.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 866. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 414. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 958, offered by Les carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1010. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Hurt me Johnny

Magali Noël was born Magali Noëlle Guiffray in Izmir, Turkey in 1932. At the age of seven, she emigrated with her family from Turkey to France in 1939.

She studied singing, music and dance, and at age 16 she made her first appearance as a cabaret singer and then occurred in revues. She also studied drama with Catherine Fontenay and then appeared in her first stage plays. In 1951 her film career began with parts in the comedies Demain nous divorçons/Tomorrow we divorce (Louis Cuny, 1951) with Sophie Desmarets, and Seul dans Paris/Alone in Paris (Hervé Bromberger, 1951) as the young wife of Bourvil.

She was noticed for the first time when she appeared in the Film Noir Du rififi chez les hommes/Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955) starring Jean Servais. James Travers at Films de France: “As the film’s stunning femme fatale, the actress Magali Noël had her big break, which would lead her to be cast by Federico Fellini in La Dolce Vita (1960) and two subsequent films. It is Noël who sings the film’s notorious (and often unfairly reviled) musical number, which explains what the slang word Rififi means - a violent confrontation between rival gangs.”

She showed that she was a luscious actress with a fiery temperament in films like Razzia sur la chnouf/Razzia (Henri Decoin, 1955) with Jean Gabin, Les Grandes Manœuvres/The Grand Maneuver (René Clair, 1955) with Gérard Philippe, and Elena et les homes/Paris Does Strange Things (Jean Renoir, 1956) featuring Ingrid Bergman.

In 1956, her recording career began in France, and her most famous song was Fais-moi mal, Johnny (Hurt me Johnny), written by Boris Vian. This song was one of the first Rock & Roll songs with French lyrics. It was forbidden on the radio for a long time due to its risqué lyrics describing – with a great sense of humour and derision – a sadomasochistic episode.


Belgian-Dutch postcard by D.R.C., no. 1393. Licency holder for Ufa. Photo: Cinephonie / Union Film.


Italian postcard by Foto S.P.E.S., Roma, no. 648. Photo: E.R.A. Cinematografica. Publicity still for E arrivata la parigina/The Parisienne has arrived (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1958).


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 3336. Photo: Eberhardt Schmidt / Ufa.

A symbol of Fellini's sexual fantasies

Magali Noël’s film career took a new turn when she appeared as Fanny in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) starring Marcello Mastroianni. She later was again a symbol of sexual fantasies as Fortunata in Satyricon (1969) and especially in Amarcord (1973).

In Amarcord, Noël played a sexy provincial hairdresser with the evocative nickname Gradisca (Taste it). Robert Firsching at AllMovie: “Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. The film's greatest asset is its ability to be sweet without being cloying, due in great part to Danilo Donati's surrealistic art direction and to the frequently bawdy injections of sex and politics by screenwriters Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Fellini clearly has deep affection for the people of this seaside village, warts and all, and communicates it through episodic visual anecdotes which are seen as if through the mists of a favourite dream”.

Noël also had a key role in another masterpiece, Costa Gravas’ political thriller Z (1968), which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, Dan Pavlides at AllMovie: “Z won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 1969, was 14th in terms of box-office success, and hit an international nerve in the age of social unrest, government cover-up, and political assassinations. All those involved worked on the film for a reduced rate with an option for royalties based on earnings at the theater window. The letter Z in the Greek alphabet means ‘he is alive’.”



Belgian postcard by D.R.C. Holland, no. 3336. Photo: Eberhardt Schmidt / Ufa.


French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 897. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris. Offered by Les Carbones Korès, no. 1115. Photo: Sam Lévin.


Costume of Magali Noël (Gradisca) in Amarcord (Federico Fellini 1973) at a costume exhibition in Cinecittà, Roma. Photo: Bob, Truus & Jan Too!@Flickr.

Successful return to the music-hall

Despite Magali Noël's work for Fellini and Costa-Gravas, producers offered her less work. So she returned successfully to the music-hall. Later a new generation of directors started to offer her roles. Among her later films are Les Rendez-vous d’Anna/Anna's Meetings (Chantal Akerman, 1978), Le chemin perdu/The lost way (Patricia Moraz, 1980) with Charles Vanel, and La Mort de Mario Ricci/The Death of Mario Ricci (Claude Goretta, 1982) featuring Gian Maria Volonté.

From 1980 on, her career extended to television films. Among her later feature films are La Fidélité/Fidelity (Andrzej Zulawski, 2000) as the mother of Sophie Marceau, and the thriller The Truth About Charlie (Jonathan Demme, 2002) with Mark Wahlberg. Magali Noël’s last film appearance was in Rien que du bonheur (Denis Parent, 2003).

Magali Noël had a daughter with actor Jean-Pierre Bernard, and two sons, who she had adopted when she remarried. She died in the retirement home in Chateauneuf-Grasse where she lived.


Magali Noël and Boris Vian sing Fais moi mal Johnny. Source: marco17220 (YouTube).


Magali Noël sings Le Rififi in Du rififi chez les hommes/Rififi (1955). Source: Dive Italiane (YouTube).


Italian trailer for Totò e Cleopatra (1963). Source: Film&Clips (YouTube).


Trailer Amarcord (1973). Source: Danios12345 (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Robert Firsching (AllMovie), Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), Le Monde (French), Magali Noël.ch (French in archive), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Imported from the USA: Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa (1889–1973) was a Japanese actor who starred in more than 80 American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. He was the first Asian actor to find stardom first in Hollywood and later in Europe. His 'broodingly handsome' good looks and typecasting as a sinister villain with sexual dominance made him a heartthrob among female audiences in the 1910s and early 1920s. Nowadays he is best remembered for his Oscar-nominated turn as Japanese POW camp commander Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).


British Real Photograph postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 224.


French card, no. 638.

The Cheat

Sessue Hayakawa (早川 雪洲) was born Kintaro Hayakawa in the village of Nanaura, now part of the city of Minamibosō in Japan in 1889. His father was the provincial governor and his mother a member of an aristocratic family of the 'samurai' class. The young Hayakawa wanted to become a career officer in the Japanese navy, but he was turned down due to problems with his hearing.

He studied political economics at the University of Chicago to fulfil his family's wish that he become a banker. After his second year of studies at the University of Chicago, Hayakawa decided to quit school and return to Japan. He travelled to Los Angeles and during his stay, he discovered the Japanese Theatre in Little Tokyo and became fascinated with acting and performing plays. It was around this time that he assumed the name Sessue Hayakawa.

One of the productions in which Hayakawa performed was called The Typhoon. Legendary producer-director Thomas Ince saw the production and offered to turn it into a silent movie with the original cast. The Typhoon (Reginald Barker, 1914) became an instant hit and was followed by two additional pictures produced by Ince, The Wrath of the Gods (Reginald Barker, 1914) co-starring his new wife, actress Tsuru Aoki, and The Sacrifice (?, 1914). With Hayakawa's rising stardom, Jesse L. Lasky offered Hayakawa a contract at Famous Players-Lasky (now Paramount Pictures).

Hayakawa's second film for Famous Players-Lasky, The Cheat (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915) with Fannie Ward, was a huge success. Again, he distinguished himself by giving a naturalistic performance. Following The Cheat, Hayakawa became a top leading man for romantic dramas in the 1910s and early 1920s.

His 'broodingly handsome' good looks and typecasting as a sinister villain with sexual dominance made him a heartthrob among American women, and the first male sex symbol of Hollywood, several years before Rudolph Valentino. He became one of the highest paid stars of his time, earning $5,000 per week in 1915, and $2 million per year through his own production company, Haworth Pictures, during the 1920s.

Wikipedia: "During the height of his popularity, critics hailed Hayakawa's Zen-influenced acting style. Hayakawa sought to bring muga, or the 'absence of doing,' to his performances, in direct contrast to the then-popular studied poses and broad gestures. He was one of the first stars to do so, Mary Pickford being another."

Hayakawa and wife Tsuru Aoki lived in a landmark home, built in the style of a French castle. He drove a gold plated Pierce-Arrow and entertained lavishly in his 'Castle' which was known as the scene of some of Hollywood's wildest parties. But in 1923, his waning popularity and a bad business deal forced Hayakawa to leave Hollywood.


British postcard in the Pictures Portrait Gallery by Pictures Ltd, London, no. 45.


British postcard. Photo: Anderson / Walker.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 16.


French postcard in the series Les Vedettes de Cinéma by A.N., Paris, no. 58.

Yoshiwara

The next 15 years Sessue Hayakawa performed in New York, in Europe and in Japan. In France, he starred in La bataille/The Battle (Sessue Hayakawa, Édouard-Émile Violet, 1923), a popular melodrama spiced with martial arts. He also appeared in the French crime drama J'ai tué!/I Have Killed (Roger Lion, 1924) with Huguette Duflos.

In the UK, he made Sen Yan's Devotion (A.E. Coleby, 1924) and The Great Prince Shan (A.E. Coleby, 1924) with Ivy Duke. In 1925, he wrote a novel, The Bandit Prince, and adapted it into a short play. In 1930, he performed in Samurai, a one-act play written especially for him, for Great Britain's King George V and Queen Mary,

In 1931 Hayakawa returned to Hollywood to make his talking-picture debut playing Fu Manchu in Daughter of the Dragon (Lloyd Corrigan 1931), featuring Anna May Wong. Sound revealed that he had a heavy accent, and his acting got poor reviews.

He returned to Japan where he made a series of films before once again going to France. There he made the geisha melodrama Yoshiwara (Max Ophüls, 1937) with Pierre Richard-Willm. He also appeared in a French remake of The Cheat called Forfaiture (Marcel L'Herbier, 1937), playing the same role that over 20 year earlier had made him one of the biggest stars in the world.

Sessue Hayakawa played a Samurai in the German-Japanese co-production Atarashiki tsuchi/The New Earth (1937), which was co-directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami.

Later, he found himself trapped and separated from his family, when the Germans occupied France in 1940. Hayakawa made few films during these years, but supported himself by selling watercolours. He joined the French Resistance and helped Allied flyers during the war.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6403/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Daughter of the Dragon (Lloyd Corrigan, 1931) with Anna May Wong.


French postcard by Edit. Chantal, no. 518. Photo: U.F.S.C.


French card, no. 37. Photo: Discina.


French postcard. Photo: Studio Carlet ainé, no. 33.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

After the war, Sessue Hayakawa's friendships with American actors led him to return to Hollywood. In 1949, Humphrey Bogart's production company located Hayakawa and offered him a role in Tokyo Joe (Stuart Heisler, 1949). Before issuing a work permit, the American Consulate investigated Hayakawa's activities during the war and found that he had in no way contributed to the German war effort.

Hayakawa followed Tokyo Joe with Three Came Home (Jean Negulesco, 1950), in which he played real-life POW camp commander Lieutenant-Colonel Suga, opposite Claudette Colbert. He had re-established himself as a character actor.

His on-screen roles of the 1950s can best be described as the honourable villain, a figure exemplified by his portrayal of Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957). The film won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Picture and Hayakawa received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, losing to Red Buttons. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe for the role that he called the highlight of his career.

After that film, Hayakawa largely retired from acting. Throughout the rest of his life he performed on a handful of television shows and a few films. He played the pirate leader in Disney's Swiss Family Robinson (Ken Annakin, 1960) and his final film appearance was in the Japanese film Junjô nijûsô (1967).

Sessue Hayakawa retired from film in 1966. After his wife's death he returned to Japan where he became a Zen master and a drama coach. He authored his autobiography, Zen Showed Me the Way, and appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood. Hayakawa died in Tokyo in 1973, from a cerebral thrombosis, complicated by pneumonia.


Trailer The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Source: SuperUnknown (YouTube).

Source: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.