Tag Archives: Pina Menichelli

Pride and passion: Pina Menichelli in Il padrone delle ferriere (1919)

Posted on 22 December 2017 by silentsplease

Aristocracy, hubris, and hauteur: these are the main ingredients in Itala-Film’s Il padrone delle ferriere | The Master of the Ironworks (1919), starring the majestic Pina Menichelli. I’d intended to cover another 1917 film in this Diva December entry, but when the Museo … Continue reading →

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1918: Fragments of Menichelli. On the trail of “Gemma di Sant’Eremo” and “La passeggiera”

Posted on 9 December 2015 by silentsplease

Recently, I was reading Italo Calvino’s wonderful book If on a winter’s night a traveller (1979), and the following line stuck in my mind: The dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot love or think except in fragments of … Continue reading →

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Oxilia, Menichelli, 1915: two short films

Posted on 2 May 2015 by silentsplease

    Via the excellent Sempre in Penombra blog; via FilmoTeca de Catalunya’s digitized collections Until his career was cut short by World War I, Nino Oxilia was one of the most promising Italian directors of the teens. Formerly a playwright, he entered … Continue reading →

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Feminine threat! Menichelli in La moglie di Claudio | The Wife of Claudius (IT 1918)

Posted on 25 March 2015 by silentsplease

In 1918, Itala-Film released a film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Femme de Claude (1873), a play which updated the Messalina myth to 19th century France. The wife of Claudius, the legendary monstrous feminine – just what kind of woman is she, here in 1910s … Continue reading →

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Il Fuoco | The Fire (IT 1915)

Posted on 21 December 2014 by silentsplease

Il fuoco: la favilla, la vampa, la cenere. The fire: the spark, the flame, the ashes. Menichelli! Il fuoco was the film that established her as a major film diva, in which she plays the femme fatale par excellence. Like Rapsodia Satanica, Il … Continue reading →

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Fatal passions: an overview of the Italian divas

Posted on 7 December 2014 by silentsplease

Decadence, outrageous emotion, an extravaganze of costume and gesture … the inimitable screen presence of the Italian divas is one of my favourite facets of the silent era. In the 1910s, actresses like Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini, and Pina Menichelli swept … Continue reading →

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