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‘Whose Films are These?’Italian–Spanish Co-Productions of TheEarly 1940sValeria CamporesiPublished online: 09 Dec 2013.

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‘WHOSE FILMS ARE THESE?’ ITALIAN–SPANISH

CO-PRODUCTIONS OF THE EARLY 1940S

Valeria Camporesi

This article analyses a group of Italian–Spanish co-productions released between1939 and 1943, which are often described as a rather obvious by-product of thenatural alliance between Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain. Among the 24 filmsproduced, only two can be considered outstanding: the big Fascist hit Sin novedaden el Alcázar/L’assedio dell’Alcazar (A. Genina, 1940) and Tosca (C. Koch,1940), a film initially assigned to Jean Renoir. Applying a cultural-industrialapproach, the article reveals a world of subterranean contradictions and a muchmore obscure relationship than political affinity would lead us to believe. It alsodefies the established chronologies of political history, in those years supposedly andoverwhelmingly determined by the Civil War and its aftermath, in Spain, and theSecond World War, in Italy. It also sheds some light on how transnational politicalrelations in Europe become entangled with business interests and vice versa, and theunpredictable results of such an awkward involvement. In some way, it implicitlyhints at how the story of peripheral and apparently minor films might contribute toobtain a more accurate perception of mighty historical circumstances.

1In spite of its wide acceptance, Thomas Guback’s 1969 pioneer study on TheInternational Film Industry2 has not created a steady flow of research on the historyof international cooperation in film production. In recent years, the impact ofcultural and industrial globalization that is characteristic of contemporary cinemahas generated a new interest in this aspect of the history of film-making. In thisdebate, the increasingly popular concept of ‘transnational film’3 and the efforts todefine a suggestive, but as yet opaque, identity for European cinema prove thispoint.4 More concretely, and within a chronological and thematic scope more clo-sely related to the story that is being reconstructed in this study, there is no doubt

*Correspondence to: Valeria Camporesi, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Histo-ria y Teoría del Arte, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain. E-mail: valeria.camporesi@uam.es

� 2013 IAMHIST & Taylor & Francis

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2013http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2013.859478

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that the study on the ‘Film Europe’ experiment carried out in the late 1990s byAndrew Higson and Richard Maltby5 yielded not only a rigorous methodology butalso solid proof of its productivity and possible applicability beyond a specific case.In a recent study, Higson has recalled the theoretical implications of this approach,and states that ‘it is inappropriate to assume that cinema and film culture arebound by the limits of the nation state’ and that ‘the contingent communities thatcinema imagines are much more likely to be either local or transnational thannational.’6 On the basis of these statements, the study whose results are describedhere aims to provide a further example of the usefulness of an approach toresearching the history of cinema unconditioned by national limits.

This article explores an early experience in transnational enterprises withinSouthern Europe. Its unquestionable marginality in relation to the history of cin-ema as a whole is, we believe, compensated for by the richness of its implications.The object of this analysis is a small group of Italian–Spanish co-productionsreleased between 1939 and 19437 and the overall aim is to assess in what measureand how this particular case might be considered a significant contribution to thetransnational history of cinema in Europe.

The long trail of multiple versions

‘To the contrary of what one would expect,’ wrote a French specialized cinemajournal in 1931, ‘cinema, once it includes dialogues, becomes an international artand industry. It is easy to see it if you simply take a look at the nationality of peo-ple, authors, directors, cameramen, and other artists, who take part in the makingof a movie.’8 Although the statement that cinema only becomes an art and aninternational industry once it includes dialogues is clearly questionable, what isinteresting in this quotation is that it describes a reality that is not always takeninto account when discussing films from the first decades of sound cinema.Especially interesting is the fact that, precisely when speech in films gave nationallanguages a much greater role in cinematographic texts than during the silentmovie era, the industry and professional scene adapted to these new circumstancesby strengthening their transnational links. The practice of shooting the same film indifferent languages, or later, applying dubbing techniques, encouraged a greatercirculation of professionals, texts and ideas that gave a new impulse to the aspira-tion of succeeding in international markets. So it was that in 1930s Europe whilefilms, as texts and cultural objects, enhanced their national outlook and democraticgovernments no less than dictatorships undertook to ‘nationalize the masses’ andlaunched all sorts of nationalist discourses on the public scene, in the world offilm-making a powerful flow of cross-border intercultural contacts was creating acrossbreed environment.

Contacts and exchanges were especially widespread among the strongestindustrial centres of the cinematographic world, Paris and Berlin being the crucialEuropean counterparts, and also beneficiaries, of Hollywood and the neuralgiccentre of transnational activity on the Old Continent.9 But there was much moregoing on, with neuralgic hubs distributed across the continent and a substantial

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current of professional migrations that changed the cultural and industrial map ofcinema in the first decades after the introduction of sound.10

Among the emerging countries with increasing transnational activity, fascistItaly played a role of some importance,11 especially in the second part of the dec-ade. Partially as a result of the regime’s fight for leadership and partially due tothe consequences of the 1938 ‘legge sul monopolio’ (law on monopoly), which hadprovoked the withdrawal of the Hollywood ‘Big Four’ from the Italian market inprotest, ‘in a few years, the Italian production witnessed a remarkable increase,and it attained first rate world status in quality, technical infrastructure and indus-trial potential so that it could produce films that were technologically advancedand able to compete with Hollywood.’12 While the number of Italian films distrib-uted in Italy grew from five in 1930 to 34 in 1938, 77 in 1939 and reached 107in 1943,13 the impulse to conquer new markets grew accordingly. Among thecountries that came to the foreground as suitable targets, Spain, or what Spainmight develop into at the end of the civil war, began to be perceived as an admis-sible ally and profitable business partner. Indeed, in addition to Spain’s potential toprovide access to the Latin American market, at that moment Spain had a veryrespectable and rapidly increasing density of cinema theatres.14 Besides, the poorresults of the LUCE documentaries in the zone controlled by Franco during thecivil war showed that more direct intervention was needed to promote Italianinterests. All this helps to explain why in February 1938 an official Italian agency,the Unione Nazionale Esportazione Pellicole, established a first contact with thebiggest Spanish studio, CIFESA, in order to embark on cooperation projects.Propaganda and the search for new markets for Italian films being the foremostobjectives for the Italian government, public support was also granted for a smallnumber of co-produced feature films, possibly in two versions.15 When the firstshooting began, at the beginning of 1939, the very Duce’s eldest son, VittorioMussolini, a film critic and editor of the film magazine Cinema, explained to thespecialized public opinion the political-economic rationale of the agreements as theItalian authorities saw it. He stated,

After so many years of predicament, it is now clear that the Spanish-speakingworld represents a big market and that it would be ludicrous if, given thegood situation we stand in with regard to this market, we should leave it tothe usual Jewish speculators (…) If our production needs foreign markets, itseems logical that countries who share the same ideas should also unite infriendly agreements allowing their respective productions to be more ambi-tious. If we take our cooperation seriously, we will have one of the greatestmarkets in the world at our disposal, because it should not be forgotten thatmany countries in South America speak Spanish. It is therefore our wish thatpeople who are struggling to introduce our films in Spain shall receivesupport.16

As for the motives, which might have prompted the other party to the envisagedalliance to accept the proposal, these are even clearer. When civil war broke outin Spain, cinema infrastructures remained within the area under republican control.To resume production, therefore, Spanish companies on the nationalist side neededpartners in other countries equipped with a sufficiently developed industry and a

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political model that would be acceptable to the Franco regime. Hitler’s Germanywas among these, and Spanish film-making teams were welcomed to Berlin. Anumber of co-productions were released, but this cinematographic alliance betweenthe two countries turned out to be very difficult and inexorably destined to fallunder Nazi domination.17 The Italian option probably seemed no less advantageousfrom an industrial perspective, as it implied access to well equipped studios andtrained professionals and, at the same time, would bring fewer dangers from thepower relations between the two countries. Without matching the levels reachedby the German film industry, Italy, as we have mentioned, was a powerful ally atthe time, comparatively speaking. In Spain, the number of films produced haddropped dramatically during the Civil War (from 27 in 1936 to 2 in 1938). Theslow recovery that accompanied the establishment of the new regime led later tothe attainment of a relative stability in 1942–1943 but the average annual produc-tion over the following decade, approximately 40 films, remained substantiallylower than the Italian, both symptom and proof of its comparative weakness.18

What was possibly much less clear from the Spanish point of view was howand to what extent cinema, in general, and these Spanish–Italian films, in particu-lar, would have to fit into the agenda of the political and ideological propaganda ofFrancoism, at a moment when the regime’s identity was still being defined.19 Andalthough the opaque cultural context was not so foggy as to hinder the perceptionof an industrial advantage with what seemed low political costs, this uncertaintyundoubtedly represented a serious source of contradictions within the eventual cin-ematographic products of the partnership. While it is true that both regimes werepolitical allies in the scenario of world politics and that they seemed to adhere tosimilar values, this did not necessarily imply an identity of vision or harmoniouspolicies, as they were in fact going through very different phases. On one hand, inItaly the cinematographic expansion of the late 1930s engendered a frantic situationthat was fragmenting the industry and diminishing the chances of political control.As Brunetta describes it, ‘in Cinecittà, a series of little worlds are built which runin parallel to those which Fascism wanted and planned.’20 On the other, in Spain,Franco was struggling to destroy democracy and establish a world of order, reli-gion and autarchy within which cinema was to be kept under strict constraint. Inaddition to this situation, likely to give rise to a wide diversity of attitudes andproducts, there was also friction of a more exquisitely political nature, most clearlyexpressed in the resistance that Luigi Freddi, the head of the Italian GeneralDirectorate of Cinematography until 1939, opposed to the idea of adopting a uni-lateral vision of the Spanish Civil War.21 As a further drawback and contradictionwithin the structure of the alliance, we may add the enthusiastic use both regimesmade of the enflamed canons of cultural nationalism, which could at any momentbe conjured against any country, albeit a former ally. Although these differenceswere never voiced openly, their presence underground was one of the factors thatcomplicated the history of the films that were eventually made. At the same time,it endowed them with a special value as privileged sources of situations and eventsthat were ensconced behind the political stage and could only be perceived with aminimum of precision through these films. It may therefore be worthwhile todelve deeper into this story in order to establish to what extent, and how, thesediverse forces shaped the films shot as Italian–Spanish co-productions, either in

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Cinecittà or in Madrid, and how the peculiar cinematographic and cultural historyof the countries involved left their mark on the actual results of the alliance.

Twenty-four almost co-produced films22

If the circumstances of a civil war in progress allow for a confused historicalsituation at the beginning of this story in Spain, things were not going to get muchbetter in the following years, with the outbreak of the Second World War and theItalian involvement in it. It seems therefore almost a miracle that between 1938and 1943, in the relatively short span of five years, this Spanish–Italian alliancegave birth to 24 films,23 quite a few of which involved transnational crews andformats.

In quantitative terms, their relative weight within the overall internal produc-tion in the two countries was rather unequal, representing approximately 15% ofthe total production in Spain and 6% in Italy.24 Equally diverse were the commer-cial strategies that stood at the basis of the different productions, although, broadlyspeaking, in both countries the relationship between the coercive nature of theregimes and the will to support and promote national business provided sympa-thetic or obedient companies with room for manoeuvre. ‘The dictatorship is notaverse to a ‘laissez faire’ policy,’ the Italian historian Mino Argentieri explains.

Once it discarded the nationalization of the industry [Fascism] built up asystem of interrelationships … In short, it experimented with a model of stateintervention which other nations would imitate in those years and that, inWestern Europe, was more or less re-adopted wherever a mixed economywas to be supported.25

Whether it was a lesson more or less intentionally absorbed by the Francoistnomenklatura, or the spontaneous results of its own political and social vision,Spain seems to have followed in the same line, at least in this case.

On the Italian side, there were 17 companies involved: five can be consideredbig and long lasting enterprises (Scalera; Lux; Fono-Roma; EIA; and the politicallyoriented Bassoli), five could be rated as medium-small; and seven as small. TheSpanish companies were seven, with only one big studio (CIFESA), a medium-sizedone (Ulargui-UFISA, politically characterized as of fascist influence) and five smal-ler ones.26 All in all, it can be stated that in both cases the range of companiesinvolved was fairly representative of the national industry, thus reinforcing the ideathat political initiative had its roots in industrial no less than ideological impulses.

Insofar as the films themselves, and their creation and reception, areconcerned, the first thing to be said is that, although they were all produced inSpanish and Italian versions, 18 did not imply actual re-shooting, as they were sim-ply dubbed, while six were filmed with different actors, as detailed in footnote 22.Besides, 10 of them ended up being classified as an exclusively Italian or Spanishproduction, and another one (Dora, o la espía) might not have been distributed inItaly.

That said, the list of films is characterized by an interesting diversity in genres,strong transnational elements (actors, directors, members of film crews), and

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strictly commercial as well as overtly political films. Given the business-like natureof these productions, classifying them in genres is an easy task. Besides, in spite ofobvious idiosyncrasies, adherence to current clichés of European cinema of the1930s, including the overwhelming influence of Hollywood formats, stories andcharacters, is strong. By far, the greatest number were comedies (nine), followedby explicitly political films (four), adventure and thriller (three each), drama andmusical (two each), and one melodrama. All in all, they are closer to the ‘modifiedversion of Hollywood continuity practice’, which Kristin Thompson singled out asthe basic feature of a ‘Pan European style’27 in the interwar years than the averageSpanish film of early Francoism, being much more akin to the Italian production ofthe time.

Nevertheless, the influence of Hollywood films was very strong and, in somecases, we can name films that worked as direct sources of inspiration. Sucedió enDamasco/Accadde a Damasco, for example, described in Italy as ‘the worst film ofthe quinquennium’28 was probably inspired on repeating the success of Alí BabáGoes to Town (D. Butler, 1937), a musical comedy in an Arabian setting starringEddie Cantor. Two films directed by Max Neufeld, on the other hand, Lluvia demillones/Fortuna (1940) and Madrid de mis sueños/Buongiorno, Madrid (1942) werecharged more indirectly with American comedy style, whose presence in cinemadéco has been described with great subtlety by Gian Piero Brunetta.29 But the mostAmericanized items of the list are Su mayor aventura/Il segreto inviolabile (J. Flechnerde Gomar, 1939), El marido provisional/Dopo divorzieremo (N. Malasomma, 1940)and Yo soy mi rival/L’uomo del romanzo (L. Marquina, M. Bonnard, 1940–1).30 In allof these, Hollywood cinema functions not only as a model, but also as an explicitcultural reference as it is part of the diegetic world. In Yo soy mi rival, a rich,divorced American woman discovers the value of love and loyalty when she estab-lishes a relationship with an Italian fiancé in the course of a trip to il bel paese. Sumayor aventura and El marido provisional are set in the USA.

The first of these two films can be described as a mimicry of a judicial melo-drama with no significant peculiarity. But the second, a sentimental comedy equallyindebted to its Hollywood model, is structured on an interesting contradictionbetween certain aspects of social behaviour in the US, which it founds its plotupon, and what was generally considered acceptable in Italy, and, even more so,in Spain. Apart from the reference to divorce, which the Italian title explicitlybrought in, the film’ text allusions to sexual desire and libidinous male gazes areliberally indulged upon, taking advantage of the freedom established by the factthat the whole situation was supposed to take place in a liberal ‘abroad.’31 Thediverse vicissitudes that this film went through when released in Italy and Spain arequite telling to the point that they might reveal a change in attitude, and therefore,a chronology. Released in Italy in September 1940, the Italian version took fulladvantage of its male star, the immensely popular Amedeo Nazzari, and paired himoff with Lilia Silvi, in her first role with him. The result of this combination of aspicy plot with effective actors was, as a critic put it, ‘one of the tastiest films ofthe beginning of the new season.’32 If this reaction is not surprising, as Italian cin-ema was notoriously comparatively liberal in admitting scabrous situations for thebenefit of enticing plots, it is interesting to see what happened when the Spanishversion, El marido provisional, had to find its way into the fellow country. To begin

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with, the title omitted any allusion to divorce. The main actors were alsosubstituted, as was usually done when shooting multiple versions. Yet the basiccharacteristics of the story, with its dialogues translated and adapted by thewell-known Spanish writer, Miguel Mihura, were not at all altered, and the filmmaintained its indiscreet ingredients.33 Nevertheless, in 1940 El marido provisionalwent quite smoothly through the censorship process. Even the official critic wasready to accept it as a ‘film viewed and done with the mercantile objective ofpleasing the general public. The American way of doing films is not whollyachieved,’ he reckoned, ‘but there are good scenes … that reveal satisfactory tech-nical skills and discernment, something not so frequent in Spanish productions.’34

And the general press accepted it as an example of competence and valuableentertainment.35 Probably due to its light character and the presence of popularactors, like Roberto Rey, El marido provisional kept popping up in double cinemasessions all through the early 1940s. But the political and ideological context of itsreception was quickly changing. So it was that three years after its release, due toa petition to revise its authorization from the local delegate of the Ministry ofPropaganda at a small Andalusian town, at the end of 1944 the film eventually dis-appeared from Spanish theatres.36

But the United States was not the only ‘abroad’ that might constitute aneffective vehicle for attractive and lighter settings. Other transnational models werealso looked up to, and life in other countries equally represented. The above-mentioned Lluvia de millones/Fortuna, for instance, was no less inspired onAustrian–Hungarian style comedies than on Hollywood, and, as many of the décofilms of those years, it was set in Hungary and directed by a transnational

FIGURE 1 The American look: still from Su mayor aventura/Il segreto inviolabile (R. Flechner de Gomar,

1939). Courtesy of Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Rome).

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film-maker.37 Filmed with the same (Italian and Spanish) actors in both versions,Lluvia de millones was curiously promoted in Spain as ‘a remarkable display ofnational cinema.’38 It is interesting though that a couple of years later, when theseshootings were moved to Spain because of the difficult situation that the progres-sion of the Second World War was creating in Italy, the diegetic worlds thathosted similar plots, tones and dialogues were also transferred and became morestrictly adapted to the Spanish context and idiosyncrasies. Thus, Neufeld’s filmMadrid de mis sueños/Buongiorno, Madrid (M. Neufeld, G.M. Cominetti, 1942)applies Central European clichés to a Spanish location, as the action developsbetween Seville and Madrid. To further complicate the cultural identity of thefilm, in the Italian version, Andalusian characters were dubbed to speak with aNeapolitan accent.39

Apart from El prisionero de Santa Cruz/Il prigioniero di Santa Cruz (C.L.Bragaglia, 1941), which is rather smoothly moulded into the format of its genre,40

the adventure films included in the list are a blend of transnational elements with adash of Italian: two of them, Capitán Tormenta/Capitan Tempesta (C. d’Errico,H. Hinrich, U. Scarpelli, 1942) and El león de Damasco/Il leone di Damasco

FIGURE 2 Italian poster of Dopo divorzieremo (N. Malasomma, 1940).

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(C. d’Errico, E. Guazzoni, 1942) are adaptations from Salgari novels, and El piratasoy yo/Il pirata sono io! (M. Mattoli, 1940) is a parody of pirate films built aroundthe Italian popular comedian Macario, a by-product of Italian regional cultureintermingled with the tradition of the Hollywood sub-genre.

Of the two films that can be classified as drama, Santa Rogelia/Il peccato diRogelia Sánchez (E. Neville, R. de Ribón, 1939) is, by far, the most interesting.41

Based on a Spanish novel published in 1926 by Armando Palacio Valdés, the film isthe result of a process that was set in motion in Spain in 1935 by a group ofFalangists united in the firm ‘Producciones Hispánicas,’42 and that had beentruncated by the outbreak of the civil war. At the first opportunity, when Antoniode Obregón, one of the leading figures of ‘Producciones Hispánicas’, was appointedDirector General of Cinematography in 1938, the project was refloated, the scriptrevised and the production revived under the auspices of an agreement with the Ital-ian S.A.F.I.C. Filmed in two versions, with different actors in secondary roles, itsleading actress in both—Germana (or Germaine) Montero (real name Heygel)—isworthy of attention. Born in Paris of French parents, after her studies in France inthe early 1930s she went to Spain to study the culture and the language. There, she

FIGURE 3 Avoiding physical contact: front cover of El marido provisional (N. Malasomma, 1940)

published script.

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made her stage debut in 1933 as a member of Federico Garcia Lorca’s company inMadrid. At the beginning of the Spanish civil war, she returned to France, whereshe appeared in various productions of Lorca’s works. It has proved impossible toascertain why and how she would eventually end up in Italy, during the war, buther fluent Spanish does explain her participation in co-productions with Spanishenterprises. Montero’s political sympathies were either judged less important thanher skills and commercial attractiveness, something that was quite common in Ital-ian transnational cinema, or simply unheard of. The film itself is no less puzzling.The plot and dialogues were probably identical in both versions, reflecting, with theobvious cinematographic brevity and a lighter Catholic tone, the basic story lineestablished in the original novel, which had awakened the interest of the FalangistAntonio de Obregón. To summarize it very briefly, the ‘Saint’ referred to in theItalian title, Rogelia Sánchez, is a village girl who, left with no family, agrees tomarry a miner for want of protection. A ruthless and violent individual, he ends upin prison for attempting to commit murder out of jealousy. Left alone, Rogeliaaccepts the attentions of the respectable, educated and affectionate doctor, who hadunwittingly provoked her husband’s jealousy, and when he is due to go abroad, shefollows him and becomes his lover. Time goes by, they live happily together andhave a child. But Rogelia, touched by the fervour of a Catholic friend, eventuallysees her guilt, and abandons her man and child to dedicate herself to visit and assisther real husband, who is held in prison in Spanish Morocco. With time, he respondsto her kindness, gradually develops a more humane attitude and eventually sacrificeshimself to save one of his fellow prisoners. The awful experiences Rogelia enduresbefore this liberation are depicted as the punishment that cleanses her soul. She cantherefore comfortably go back to her lover and child, ready to start afresh, and free

FIGURE 4 Still from Il pirata sono io! (M. Mattoli, 1940). Courtesy of Centro Sperimentale di

Cinematografia (Rome).

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from bonds. The film ends with her safe return to a smooth and well-deservedhappiness. Consoled by the regenerating power of atonement, the Italian Catholic‘Rivista del cinematografo’ judged the film as ‘reserved to people with a fullydeveloped balance and moral maturity,’43 but considered it acceptable. In general,reception in Italy was smooth, as the film was considered an adequate treatment ofa strong popular story rooted in Spanish culture. Hardly a masterpiece, it wasequally described as a film ‘set in Spain but universal in soul’44 and as ‘bleak,violent, strong, in a word, Spanish.’45 Yet meanwhile, in Spain, where the projectwas originally picked up for adaptation, not only was it occasionally referred to as‘a demonstration of how little national cinematography has achieved so far,’ but, ingeneral, went practically unperceived, or directly uncomprehended.46 It might beproof of the still underdeveloped state of film culture in Spain in 1940, when it wasreleased, that not much was made of it, either in favour or against, compared withthe way in which other Italian–Spanish co-productions, much lighter in scope, werereceived.

As was customary in the 1930s and 1940s, quite a few of these Italian–Spanishfilms had a strong musical component, although only two pivoted around a musicaltheme, Tosca (C. Koch, 1940) and El último húsar/Amore di ussaro/Amore azzurro(L. Marquina, 1940). A complicated production with a meaning that exceeds thelimits of the story told in these pages, Tosca will be discussed below, as a symp-tomatic example of the broader implications of the co-productions analysed here.El último húsar, on the other hand, should more appropriately be dealt with here.The first interesting detail is that the story of its production runs closely parallel tothe process that gave birth to Santa Rogelia: the same group of people, organizedaround Antonio de Obregón, in this instance also the author of its original script,had begun to work on the project before the outbreak of the civil war. The plot

FIGURE 5 Italian poster of Il peccato di Rogelia Sánchez (R. de Ribón, E. Neville, 1939).

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told the story of love against adverse conditions in the context of an almostcaricaturized early 20th century with a strong touch of anti-Semitism. When theagreement with Italy was concluded, the script was retrieved, to take advantage ofan alliance that allowed for a more generous budget and a more modern industrialstructure. In a complicated process, direction was eventually handed over to ‘oneof the weirdest and most singular figures’47 of Spanish cinema, Luis Marquina, andalthough the original script was adapted for the Italian version, differences mustnot have been dramatic and did not change the basic plot. Released in December1940 in Italy and two months later in Spain, the film gained a conspicuous visibilityin both countries, being thoroughly dealt with and, in general, reasonably praised.‘From the technical, as well as the artistic point of view, a perfect fusion has beenattained between the Italian and Spanish ingredients,’48 an Italian magazine trium-phantly declared. ‘The film, brought forward with fine perspicacity, displays classand sensibility, in a measure not so frequent in Spanish directors,’ the most estab-lished popular film magazine in Spain echoed.49 All in all, along with Sin novedaden el Alcázar, El último húsar is one of the few of these co-productions that seem tohave had a similar, positive and almost simultaneous visibility in both countries.Generally speaking, it was acknowledged both in Italy and Spain as a correct

FIGURE 6 Spanish poster of Santa Rogelia (R. de Ribón, E. Neville, 1939): transnational collaborations

are expunged.

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translation of a local subject into the Central European cinematographic version ofoperetta, and a possible model to be followed.

As individual examples show, reception for these films was far from unani-mous, either in critical, and political, appraisal, or in timing.50 Indeed, reviewswould often diverge, especially as time went by, as the distance kept growingbetween a dictatorship in the process of establishing a firmer control on publicopinion in Spain, and a regime at war whose declining strength was every daymore visible and out of control in Italy. Often, no clear adscription to either oneof the two countries was reckoned. And quite a few of these co-productions werereleased with a conspicuous delay in Spain, for diverse and changing causes thathad to do with commercial as well as bureaucratic and political strategies,51 andmight eventually be denied the official status of (partially) Spanish productions.52

Indeed, if one pays attention to what the press said of the nationality of thesefilms, only very few were ever officially and publicly presented as co-productions,and still fewer as time went by.

Equally confusing is the issue of the national cultural content of the mainactors and actresses who starred in these films. The group that most consistentlyappeared in these 24 films was made up of middle range stars, of Spanish origins,and with Spanish names.53 As a rule, they were often, but not always, employedin both versions, and were, or became, transnational professionals, although in thefilms’ promotion continuous references were made to their Spanish national andcultural roots. Conchita Montenegro was the best known in the internationalscene. She had made a career in Hollywood, where she was first employed in theSpanish language versions, which were filmed there in the early 1930s, and workedlater in a few Fox productions in English. At the end of her contract in 1935, shewent back to Europe, where she played in various French films, ending up in Italyin 1940, a few months before the launching of the Italian–Spanish co-productions.Beautiful, lean and sophisticated, Montenegro was a suitable Latin substitute for aHollywood standard actress and a reliable professional, in spite of which she retiredfrom cinema in 1944.

In a similar rank, although radically different in look and meaning, stood Juande Landa, who starred in five of these films, an actor, as L’illustrazione italianawrote in February 1940, ‘whom you might remember to have seen in theAmerican Carcere, a first rate spotlight chaser and a fellow admirably ugly.’54 A bigman, amateur opera singer and well fitted into the stereotype of the strong naïfmale, at the same time potentially brutal and tender, adjustable to comedy anddrama alike, he was able to fit into different roles and characters, and became aregular presence in Italian screens during the Second World War. He began hiscareer as a film actor in the US, and in the early 1930s he also became wellknown in his native Spain for his activity in the Hollywood Spanish versions.55

When dubbing uprooted the practice of multiple language versions in film-making,and de Landa was forced to return, he was quickly employed for a short period inSpain, and, during the civil war, managed to introduce himself in the Italian filmindustry. So it was that when, in 1942, Visconti asked him to play a major role inOssessione, de Landa was at the peak of his popularity in Italy, although nobodyseemed to remember it at the end of the war,56 when he went back to work inSpain.

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The third ‘Spanish-for-Italians’ actress who plays a major role in theco-productions of the early 1940s is María Mercader. Later to be known as thepartner and wife of Vittorio De Sica, Mercader began her career in cinema inSpain, but she only worked there in two films before the breaking up of the CivilWar. Having fled to Paris, she played a minor role in a French film in 1938–1939and emigrated later to Italy to work in Su mayor aventura. Since then, and in thefollowing decade, she began to work regularly, and enjoy a significant popularity,in both countries,57 although progressively more established in Italy. Associatedwith a spontaneous style of acting and a ‘Mediterranean’ voice,58 she was also ableto comply with a wide range of roles and tones, although generally consideredbetter suited to a realistic, or not too unrealistic, style. Hardly Spanish looking,she established herself as a stable presence in the Italian industry through the post-war years, until her voluntary retirement in the early 1950s.

The Italian counterparts to these Spanish interpreters were much less regularin the Italian–Spanish cinematographic world, the two most recurrent stars beingAmedeo Nazzari, by far the most popular, and Fosco Giachetti, whose strong polit-ical profile in Italian cinema is confirmed by his appearance here in Frente de

FIGURE 7 Conchita Montenegro in a still from La nascita di Salomé (J. Choux, 1940). Courtesy of

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Rome).

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Madrid/Carmen fra i rossi (E. Neville, 1939) and the big Fascist hit Sin novedad en elAlcázar/L’assedio dell’Alcazar (A. Genina, 1940). Contrary to what happens withtheir Spanish colleagues, Italian actors, and actresses, who participated in theseco-productions had not had previous transnational experience and, generally speak-ing, their participation in these films did not alter remarkably the course of theircareers.

But there is a further group of professionals who clearly belonged to the trans-national sphere. As was the case for the Spanish actors and actresses describedabove, a few of the directors involved in these projects had also worked in differ-ent national systems, either for strictly professional reasons, or as a consequence ofpolitical circumstances. Among the Spanish and Italian directors, Benito Perojo,Edgar Neville and Augusto Genina, for instance, had directed films in differentEuropean countries. As for the three international film-makers who participated inthese co-productions, Max Neufeld, Jean Choux and Carl Koch, they form a groupof diverse but well-established figures. A Jewish Austrian by birth, Neufeld pursuedhis career between Germany and Austria as a transnational actor and, later, direc-tor, until 1933, when he was forced to find professional refuge in countries whereanti-Semitic legislation and prosecution were not, or not yet, in force.Co-productions led him to Italy, and, through the contacts established while hewas working in Lluvia de Millones, he worked later, occasionally, in Spain.59 TheSwiss Jean Choux had worked in France and Italy before the war. His condition ascitizen of a neutral country together with his predisposition for light comedy of atransnational type60 made it easy for him to work regardless of frontiers andnational rivalries. Hardly a major figure in cinema, Carl Koch, Lotte Reininger’shusband and collaborator, spent a great part of the Nazi years striving to avoidliving in his native Germany, and ended up directing the most ambitious of theItalian–Spanish co-productions of the early 1940s as a casual consequence of hiswanderings. The complicated story of that film, Tosca, deserves to be told indetail.

The story of Tosca and conclusive remarks61

According to what Renoir himself writes in his autobiography, at the beginning ofthe Second World War, when he was serving in the French army, the still neutralItalian Fascist government approached him to see whether he would be willing togive some classes at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Apparently urgedby the French authorities to accept this proposal, while he was in Rome theyoffered him to direct the first adaptation to sound cinema of Tosca, the famous playby Sardou, and even more famous Puccini opera, a task he initially accepted butthat, as circumstances changed, as we will see, he would later abandon.62 It isimpossible to ascertain where the idea came from, or whether the Italians had dis-cussed it with their Spanish partners. Yet it is unquestionable that CIFESA, the bigSpanish studio, was involved in the early stages of the film’s pre-production.Although in the end Tosca, as Carl Koch finished it, would arbitrarily be considered100% Italian by the Spanish official agencies, and while it is not clear in whatterms or when CIFESA was supposed to have got into the picture, it is

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unquestionable that the Valencian firm actively supported and promoted the projectsince its very beginning.63 Having assembled a typically transnational crew, shoot-ing began in May 1940, with a European war already under way and at a momentwhen, in the realm of national politics, the relationship between the French andItalian governments was deteriorating speedily. In fact, just a month later, Italydeclared war on France. Faced with an unpleasant and possibly dangerous situation,Renoir abandoned the set and left the country, leaving his German assistant, CarlKoch, in charge of the shooting.64 In August, the press reported that ImperioArgentina, ‘the well known Spanish actress,’ was going to take up the main role,and the film’s production, which had been suspended ‘for extra-artistic reasons,’65

was about to be resumed. In October, while shooting was still in progress, an Ital-ian magazine announced that Scalera Films had ‘engaged Imperio Argentina, wellknown to audiences all over the world, and especially in Spain, Germany, andItaly, to appear in eight films shot in Italian and Spanish versions.’66 In fact, Toscawas going to be her only participation in the Italian–Spanish co-productions, proba-bly for a combination of personal as well as professional reasons. Besides, thechanging political situation that accompanied the progress of the Second WorldWar would soon alter the supposed value of her previous popularity in NaziGermany67 to the point that she was eventually confined in Francoist Spain. Onthe other hand, the film itself did not cause a big stir either, in spite of its remark-able concentration of cinematographic talent and the spectacular images obtainedby filming on location in monumental areas of Rome. It experienced a sort ofresurgence after the end of the war, when it was distributed in the United States,in 1947, but the troubled story that had hampered the progress of the project inits appropriate context hindered its complete resurrection, and could not clear itfrom the political determinants that marked it off.

Exceptional as Tosca was in its potential cinematographic value, its story shedslight on the whole initiative described in these pages. All in all, these films, differ-ent as they were in content, ambition and form, add up to a rational attempt atpromoting a cinematographic alliance whose basic objective was eminently com-mercial but, at the same time, had to comply with undetermined and changing,but strong, political strategies. This is how what was originally thought of as a‘well deserved lesson to the whole world,’ as a Spanish writer wishfully wrotein 1939, which these ‘remarkable artists’68 offered in the context of the Italian–Spanish cinematographic alliance, was paradoxically blown up, defused, or simplytoned down by political priorities, and eventually defeated by the war, on oneside, and Francoism, on the other. Its legacy is, and was, contradictory. The filmsthemselves, as well as their directors, with the sole exception of Sin novedad en elAlcázar and Genina, never made it into the limelight, and soon turned into lightshades in collective memory. And even that heroic reconstruction of a wellinvented chapter of the Civil War underwent a metamorphosis that changed itsmeaning as time, and history, went by.69 The low and middle range stars thisgroup of films gave rise to, undoubtedly particular and specific, either went backto national contexts, or abandoned cinema, their best days being over. In a way itcould be said that these co-productions nurtured results dramatically similar tomany European enterprises: conceived within political circles, or, at least, withone eye on obtaining political privileges, later made reality by industrial,

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intellectual and commercial interests, sometimes aimed at gaining money or powerfor certain enterprises or groups, they eventually drooped or missed their goals.70

Yet, paradoxically, when seen as figments, short phases, small cases in point, of alonger history, they do retain a fascinating historical pregnancy. They show thedurability of transnational practices and experience, which could not only gatherprofessionals from apparently contradictory or even incompatible cultures andnationalities, but could also surmount dramatic discontinuities in political history,and create its own chronology, disrespectful of established historical categories.Italian–Spanish cooperation in cinema, for instance, would prove strong and dura-ble in the following decades, opening up a smoother interchange when Italy hadbecome a democracy and Spain a dictatorship than when Fascist ideology hadseemed to unite the two countries, a development that suggests that the wholeendeavour was not only a matter of political relationship, but also a stream of cul-tural contiguity that the industry attempted to exploit. Born out of an apparentlysimple political and ideological project, which should have cemented an alliancebetween analogous regimes, these films ended up revealing an unsuspected worldof conflicting cultures and expectations. Indeed, film history has a lot to teach us,

FIGURE 8 Spanish poster of Tosca (C. Koch, 1940).

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and its small, peripheral stories, the ones that were apparent failures, might adddense hues to our perception of the past and inspire new, challenging questions toexplore.

Notes

1 This essay forms part of the research project HAR2011-24371 (‘El mundo de laspelículas: una visión sin fronteras de industria, profesiones y cultura del cine enEspaña en las primeras tres décadas del sonoro’; IP: V. Camporesi). I wish tothank Natalia Meneses who worked with me in the early stages of this work,whose origin lies in the presentation we wrote for the 2011 NECS conference(University of London, June 2011).

2 Thomas Guback, The International Film Industry (Bloomington, 1969).3 For a general overview, see for instance Elizabeth Ezra and Terry Rowden (eds),

Transnational Cinema. The Film Reader (Abingdon, 2006) and Natasa Durovicovaand Kathleen Newman (eds), World Cinema, Transnational Perspective (New Yorkand London, 2009).

4 For a general appraisal on the concept of European cinema in history, see TimBergfelder, National, transnational or supranational cinema? Rethinking Europeanfilm studies, Media, Culture and Society, 27(3) (2005), 315–331. For extensive his-torical appreciations of the European cinematographic roots and features see GianPiero Brunetta, Identità e radici culturali, and Pierre Sorlin, Caratteri del cinemaeuropeo, both in G. P. Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinema mondiale. Volume primo.L’Europa. 1. Miti, luoghi, divi (Turin, 1999), 3–50 and 51–72.

5 Andrew Higson and Richard Maltby (eds), ‘Film Europe’ and ‘Film America’.Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange 1920–1939 (Exeter, 1999).

6 Andrew Higson, The limiting imagination of national cinema, in: Ezra andRowden, Transnational Cinema, 73.

7 Conversations between official agencies and big studios of the two countriesbegan in February 1938, and in July 1943, the fall of Mussolini brought the exist-ing agreements to an end, as Franco did not officially recognize the Salò regime.Under these agreements, 24 films were actually produced and distributed (a listis provided in footnote 24 below). The first shooting (Los hijos de la noche) beganin February 1939, and the last one (Dora, la espía) ended in mid-1943. For a gen-eral appraisal, see Felipe Cabrerizo, Tiempo de mitos. Las coproducciones cinematográ-cas entre la España de Franco y la Italia de Mussolini (1939–1943) (Zaragoza, 2007),a crucial starting point for this research.

8 De ci, de là, dans la corporation, Le cinéopse, XIII, 141 (May 1931), 227.9 To further support the idea that this vision is rooted in widely spread practices of

the early 1930s, see the recent exhibition ‘Tournages. Paris-Berlin-Hollywood’organized by the Cinématèque française (March–August 2010).

10 The bibliography on transnational activities in European cinema is now greatlyextended. Especially relevant for the case here under study, Natasa Durovicovaand Hans-Michael Bock (eds), Multiple and Multiple Language Versions/Versionsmultiples, Cinema & Cie, 4 (2004); Simone Venturini and Hans-Michael Bock(eds), Multiple and Multiple Language Versions II/Versions Multiples II, Cinema& Cie, 6 (2005); Francesco Pitassio and Leonardo Quaresima (eds), Multiple and

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Multiple Language Versions III/Versions Multiples III, Cinema & Cie, 7 (2005);and Anna Antonini (ed.), Il film e i suoi multipli/Film and Its Multiples (Udine,2003).

11 See Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinema italiano di regime. Da ‘La canzone dell’amore’ a‘Ossessione’ (Bari, 2009), viii; and, of the same author, Cent’anni di cinema italiano(Bari, 1991), 174.

12 Gian Piero Brunetta, Guida alla storia del cinema italiano 1905–2003 (Torino,2003), 96. See also Aldo Bernardini, Le collaborazioni internazionali nel cinemaeuropeo, in: G. P. Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinema mondiale. Volume primo, 1013–1048.

13 Source: Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinema italiano di regime, 11.14 See Antonio Cuevas, La industria cinematográfica en España, Boletín del Sindicato

Nacional del Espectáculo, V (1946), 7–10. According to Cuevas, Spain in 1945 hadthe world’s second largest number of cinemas per capita, the first being the Uni-ted States of America.

15 See Cabrerizo, Tiempo de mitos, 19–21. Brunetta also remarks that the fascistcinematographic policy of the 1930s and early 1940s had to do with an interestin the international promotion of Italian films; see Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinemaitaliano di regime, 17–18.

16 V. Mussolini, Asterischi, Cinema, 62 (25 January 1939), 39. As the same maga-zine reported a month later, opinions were expressed in the French specializedpress that a victory of Franco in the Civil War might have a negative effect onthe commercial perspectives of French cinema in Spain. See Un mercatoconteso, Cinema (25 February 1939), 112.

17 In her detailed study of Andalüsische Nächte (H. Meisch, 1938), the German ver-sion of the Spanish Carmen, la de Triana (F. Rey, 1938), Marta Muñoz Aunióndescribes how the German-Spanish cinematgraphic relations evolved during thecivil war. See Marta Muñoz Aunión, El cine español según Goebbels: Apuntes so-bre la versión alemana de Carmen, la de Triana, Secuencias, 20 (2004), 25–46. Seealso Julio Montero and M. Antonia Paz, La larga sombra de Hitler. El cine nazi enEspaña (1933–1945) (Madrid, 2009) and for the broader context Pablo León Ag-uinaga, Sospechosos habituales: El cine norteamericano, Estados Unidos y la España fran-quista 1939–1960 (Madrid, 2010), 98–100.

18 Source: Emeterio Díaz Puertas, Historia social del cine en España (Madrid, 2003),45.

19 On the transitional nature of the contents and structure of Francoist propagandain the first years after the end of the Civil War, see Francisco Sevillano Calero,Cultura, propaganda y opinión en el primer franquismo, Ayer, 33 (1999),151–152.

20 Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinema italiano di regime, 16.21 See Antonio Costa, La estructura como fortaleza: El Alcázar de Toledo y su

entorno, Archivos de la Filmoteca Valenciana, 35 (2000), 109–129.22 Nineteen were shot in Italy, five in Spain. Only six were filmed in two versions

with different actors (in the following list, they are singled out with an asterisk),the others being dubbed. The Spanish and Italian titles and the genre they can beincluded in are: *Frente de Madrid/Carmen fra i rossi (Edgar Neville, 1939)—politi-cal drama; Los hijos de la noche/I figli della notte (Benito Perojo, 1939)—comedy;*Santa Rogelia/Il peccato di Rogelia Sánchez (Roberto de Ribón/Edgar Neville,

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1939)—drama; Su mayor aventura/Il segreto inviolabile (Julio Flechner de Gomar,1939)—drama; El hombre de la legión/L’uomo della legione (aka La ragazza di Vene-zia) (Romolo Marcellini, 1940)—political drama; El inspector Vargas/L’ispettoreVargas (Félix Aguilera/Gianni Franciolini, 1940)—thriller; *El marido provisional/Dopo divorzieremo (Nunzio Malasomma, 1940)—comedy; El nacimiento de Salomé/La nascita di Salomé (Jean Choux, 1940)—comedy; El pirata soy yo/Il pirata sonoio! (José de Romero, Mario Mattioli, 1940)—comedy; El último húsar/Amore diussaro (aka Amore azzurro) (Luis Marquina, 1940)—musical; Lluvia de millones/Fort-una (Max Neufeld, 1940)—comedy; La última falla/Ultima fiamma (Benito Perojo,1940)—comedy; Sin novedad en el Alcázar/L’assedio dell’Alcazar (Augusto Genina,1940)—political drama; Tosca (Carl Koch, 1940)—musical; Yo soy mi rival/L’uomodel romanzo (Mario Bonnard/Luis Marquina, 1940)—comedy; *La muchacha deMoscú/Sancta Maria (Edgar Neville, 1941)—political drama; El prisionero de SantaCruz/Il prigioniero di Santa Cruz (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1941)—adventure;*Capitán Tormenta/Capitan Tempesta (Corrado d’Errico, Hans Hinrich and Umber-to Scarpelli, 1942)—adventure; *El león de Damasco/Il leone di Damasco (Corradod’Errico and Enrico Guazzoni, 1942)—adventure; Madrid de mis sueños/Buongi-orno, Madrid! (Max Neufeld and Gian Maria Cominetti, 1942)—comedy; Dora, laespía/Dora, o le spie (Raffaele Matarazzo, 1943)—thriller; Fiebre/Febbre (Primo Ze-glio, 1943)—thriller; Piruetas juveniles/Romanzo a passo di danza (Gian CarloCappelli, 1943)—drama; Sucedió en Damasco/Accadde a Damasco (José López Ru-bio/Primo Zeglio, 1943)—comedy.

23 According to the contemporary press, a few more joint enterprises wereattempted. See, for instance, Rosario Pi’s projects reviewed in Film, 36 (7September 1940), 4.

24 See the data reported in Cabrerizo, Tiempo de mitos, 135. For contemporaryappraisals see also Antonio Mas Guindal, Resumen crítico del año 1940, Primerplano, 1(10) (22 December 1940); and La actividad de los estudios españoles, Pri-mer plano, 1(1) (20 October 1940).

25 Mino Argentieri, Il cinema in guerra. Arte, comunicazione e propaganda in Italia1940–1944 (Roma, 1998), 223.

26 For a general appraisal of Spanish cinematographic enterprises, see EsteveRiambau and Casimiro Torreiro, Productores en el cine español. Estado, dependencia ymercado (Madrid, 2008).

27 Kristin Thompson, National or International Films? The European Debate duringthe 1920s, Film History, 8(3) (1996), 295.

28 Vice, Film, 43 (1943).29 See Gian Piero Brunetta, Il cinema italiano di regime, 241–254.30 But also Sucedió en Damasco was an awkward imitation of the Eddie Cantor block-

buster Ali Baba Goes to Town, D. Butler, 1937.31 The catholic Rivista del cinematografo would say: ‘The reference to divorce, only

hinted at, can be explained by the fact that the story is set in America’ (a. XIII,n. 11, 20 November 1940, 205). For a balanced appraisal of the film’s culturalimplications regarding the image of the US, see Argentieri, 159.

32 Cinema, 25 October 1940, 312.33 See the literary script published in the weekly Cinema, XXI, 15 November 1940.34 Primer plano, 8 December 1940.35 ABC, 5 January 1941, Andalousian Edition, 12.

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36 Among the members of the board, opinions were not unanimous, though, as thereligious representative considered the film a ‘profanation of marriage,’ while themilitary delegate did not see anything to be reproached, and the ministry spokes-person concluded that ‘everything which constituted the film is harmful …Besides, it is old and in bad condition, due to which it should be prohibited’ (12December 1944). Ministerio de Cultura 36/13170 Archivo General de la Admin-istración (hereafter MCU, AGA). The dates indicated by Cabrerizo, Tiempo de mi-tos, 90 should be revised: in February 1944 the film was denounced, but theMinistry decision only came 10 months later, a significant detail to understandhow censorship worked.

37 For detailed information on this film, as well as on Madrid de mis sueños, alsodirected by Neufeld, see Armin Loacker (ed.), Kunst der Routine. Der Schauspielerund Regisseur Max Neufeld (Wien, 2008), esp. 278–299 (Miguel Hidalgo, MaxNeufeld und das zweite Aufleben des spanischen Kinos).

38 Primer plano, 16 March 1941.39 A contemporary Italian reviewer states: ‘A film which contains a few weird

things, like some Spaniards who speak Napolitan’ (R. Radice, Corriere della sera,21 February 1943, cit. in Roberto Chiti and Enrico Lancia, I film vol. I (Rome,2005), 54.

40 Described as ‘a dramatic and passionate genre … which is typified by twoelements: miscarriage of justice and a star as main character’ (Fiera delle novità.Il prigioniero di Santa Cruz, Cinema, 10 April 1941, 242).

41 The other one being Fiebre/Febbre (P. Zeglio, 1943), shot in Spain under strictcontrol as the Committee that had examined its script considered that, althoughthe dramatic story might be adequate for a technically well made film, it was‘inadmissible from the Spanish moral standpoint’ (4 November 1941) MCU-AGA36/04562. According to Loacker, the film was directed by Neufeld, although hewas not eventually credited with it [Armin Loacker, Max Neufeld: Schauspieler,Regisseur, Produzent, in: Loacker (ed.), Kunst der Routine, 73].

42 See Juan B. Heinink and Alfonso C. Vallejo, Catálogo del cine español. Films deficción 1931–1940 (Madrid, 2009), 260–261. Producciones Hispánicas might bethe enterprise which had a say in the transactions between the Italian Ministry ofPopular Culture and various Spanish groups—aligned with Franco—which tookplace in August 1938, as Cabrerizo (Tiempo de mitos, 21–22) describes them.

43 Rivista del cinematógrafo, XIII, 2 (February 1940), 37.44 Cronache della produzione italiana, Schermo, August 1939, 30.45 Sei dive per ordine alfabetico, Schermo, October 1939, 18.46 ‘We don’t really understand the title of this film,’ the cited review went on.

‘There is a moment of atonement, maybe some repentance. But that is far fromenough to call Rogelia a “saint”’ (Santa Rogelia, ABC, 11 January 1941, 6).

47 This is the way he is described in the standard reference work on Spanish cinemaWho’s Who, see José Luis Borau, dir., Diccionario del cine español (Madrid,1998), 546. According to the testimony of Luis Marquina’s son, El último húsar,was one of his favorite among his films. See Julio Pérez Perucha, El cinema de LuisMarquina (Valladolid, 1983), 15. Some sources credit Marquina also with the co-direction of Yo soy mi rival, although it seems unlikely (66).

48 Si gira Amore di ussaro, collaborazione italo-spagnola, Film, 20 April 1940, 4. Inthe main newspaper of Barcelona, the film was described as an example of the

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‘maturity and technical perfection’ attained by ‘our national cinematography’ (LaVanguardia, 5 February 1941, 5).

49 Primer Plano, 17, 9 February 1941.50 As it also reckoned in Argentieri, Cinema in guerra, 54–60.51 To cite just a few clear cases, political divergences seem to have been the cause

for the delay in the case of Piruetas juveniles, see the Board of Censors papers,MCU-AGA 36/04568; and the overall reconstruction in Félix Monguilot Benzal,Piruetas juveniles: génesis, desarrollo y fortuna de la película olvidada de CesareZavattini en España, in: Actas del XIII Congreso de la AEHC (Perillo, 2011),381–390; and in José Enrique Monterde, Zavattini y el cine español, in: Quadernidel CSCI. Rivista annuale del cinema italiano, n. 2 (2006), 70–82; and El hombre dela legión (Board of Censor papers in MCU-AGA 36/3170). On the other hand,the ongoing war blocked El inspector Vargas (MCU-AGA 36/03291), but no fur-ther sign of explicit political boycotts could be found.

52 Producers were still striving to have Tosca listed as a Spanish film as late as 1956.See official papers in MCU-AGA 36/03190.

53 The term ‘star’ is used here within the limits exposed in Stephen Gundle, FilmStars and Society in Fascist Italy, in: Jaqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo (eds),Re-Viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema 1922–1943 (Bloomington, 2002), 315–340.

54 Tre scrittori classici al soccorso del cinematografo, L’illustrazione italiana, 4February 1940, 147.

55 See José Miguel de Amezketa, Juan de Landa, aktorea (Donostia, 2004), 44–46.For contemporary appraisals in Italy and Spain, see his profile in Cinema, 25November 1940, 384 and La Vanguardia, 28 January 1932, 16.

56 Compare the article devoted to his career in 1940 (Puck, Galleria. CVI Juan deLanda, Cinema, 25 November 1940, 384) with Antonio Pietrangeli’s review ofOssessione in Star, 21 April 1945, 6, where he isn’t even mentioned. Neverthe-less, the industry had not forgotten him, and in the 1950s he worked in variousItalian co-productions.

57 Mercader sketchily describes her experiences in Paris, and how she got in touchwith Italian producers, in her autobiography, María Mercader, Mi vida con Vittoriode Sica (Barcelona, 1980), 23–24. Also see the reconstruction of her probablycrucial relationship with Spanish female director Rosario Pi in Susan MartinMarquez, Feminist Discourse and Spanish Cinema (Oxford, 1999), 82–84. Mercad-er’s performance in her first film in Italy, Su mayor aventura, was positivelyreceived, for instance, by the influential Rivista del cinematografo, which stated:‘These actors, coming from Spain, unknown for us, possess a very lively, and atthe same time traditional, natural endowment for the light and sparkling tones ofcomedy’ (XIII, 1 January 1940, 11).

58 See Gualtiero De Santi, Maria Mercader. Una catalana a Cinecittà (Naples, 2007),10–13, and, for a contemporary appraisal, Film, 1 March 1941, 5.

59 This is, at least, what Fidalgo and Loacker consider most likely. See Loacker(ed.), Kunst der Routine, 73. To better contextualize Neufeld’s visibility in Spain,though, it should be added that his films were generously distributed there beforethe beginning of the Civil War. See Luis Fernández Colorado, Il suono e la furia.Cinema spagnolo 1929–1939, in: Gian Piero Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinemamondiale. 3: L’Europa. Le cinematografie nazionali (Turin, 2000), 323–340.

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60 See Claude Beylie and Philippe d’Hugues, Les oubliés du cinéma français (París,2000), 39–43.

61 No reference to the Spanish participation is made in the detailed reconstructionof the film’s production to be found in Ivo Blom, ‘Mit nur einem Blick perfidesein’. Carl Koch, Jean Renoir, Luchino Visconti und Tosca, in: Francesco Bonoand Johannes Roschlau, eds. Tenöre, Touristen, Gastarbeiter. Deutsche-italienischeFilmbeziehungen (Munich, 2011), 80–92.

62 Jean Renoir, Ma vie et mes films (Paris, 1974), 160–161. See the first reports inCinema, 25 May 1940, 354–355.

63 See the commentaries reported in ABC-Sevilla, 20 April 1941, 8.64 Although Luchino Visconti might have played a more important role than

normally acknowledged according to Ivo Blom, Mit nur.65 Film, 31 August 1940, 23.66 Cinema, 25 October 1940, 310.67 See Colección ‘Ídolos del cine’, n. 108 (Madrid, 1958).68 Radiocinema, 15 July 1939.69 See Daniela Aronica, La génesis de Sin novedad en el Alcázar, Archivos de la

Filmoteca Valenciana, 35 (2000), 71–95.70 Argentieri described the context which better explains this state of things, and

which can be literally extended to Spain: ‘Neither the Anglo-Saxon democracies,nor Fascism, nor Nazism dared to force criteria of management which hinderedeconomic profit upon the entertainment industry, not even for a short period, orfor the purpose of a superior aim of national usefulness. It is therefore no won-der that in the USA, Germany or Italy, war and ideological mobilization did notblock the way to a plethora of films with no relation whatsoever to the conflict.What might be more surprising is that among the capitalist countries, the USwas the one which most decidedly restructured its cinematographic productionto the needs of war’ (Argentieri, Cinema in guerra, 177–178).

Valeria Camporesi. is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Art History and Theory ofthe Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). She received her Ph.D. in “History and Civili-zation” from the European University Institute, S. Domenico di Fiesole (Florence, Italy). Sheis the author of Mass Culture and National Traditions. The BBC and American Broadcasting,1922-1954 (2002), Para grandes y chicos. Un cine para los españoles, 1940-1990(1994) and Il cinema spagnolo attraverso i suoi film (ed., 2014). Her main research inter-ests have to do with a general revision of the “national identity” concept in European mediahistory and visual culture. She has published extensively on the transnational history ofSpanish cinema.

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