Austrian-Italian Encounters: Notes on Some Films Produced Between Rome and Vienna in the 1930s

Abstract

This essay deals with a number of Italian and Austrian films produced around the mid-1930s as a result of the cinematic cooperation that developed between Rome and Vienna at the time. The essay’s goal is to investigate a complex chapter in the history of Italian and Austrian film which has yet received little attention. The Austro-Italian cooperation in the field of film, which developed against the backdrop of the political alliance between Fascist Italy and Austria’s so-called Corporate State, involved some of the biggest names in Italian and Austrian cinema of the time, including Italian directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and Goffredo Alessandrini, Viennese screenwriter Walter Reisch, and Italian novelist Corrado Alvaro. In particular, the essay will consider the Italian film Casta Diva (1935) and its debt to one of the most famous Austrian productions of the 1930s, Willi Forst’s film Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933). Further films to be discussed include Tagebuch der Geliebten (1935), Una donna tra due mondi (1936), Opernring (1936), and Blumen aus Nizza (1936). Tagebuch der Geliebten was based on the diary of Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff, who lived in Paris in the late 19th century. Una donna tra due mondi starred Italian diva Isa Miranda, Opernring Polish tenor Jan Kiepura, Blumen aus Nizza German singer Erna Sack.These films should be truly regarded as transnational productions, in which various cultural traditions and stylistic influences coalesced. By investigating them, this essay aims to shed light on a crucial period in the history of European cinema.