24/09/2004 - Num. 22 2004

Capri in the movies

From Totò to Godard, Sophia Loren and BB, Capri has a long history as a movie location

Other versions: it

by Alessandro Mauro

Although it does not claim to be exhaustive, and although it does not follow any strict order, this brief history of films set in Capri must inevitably begin with Antonio de Curtis, better known as Totò, an Emperor on the screen – between the Faraglioni – and a Prince in real life, whose memorable acting talent contributed to one of the best movies shot on the island. A movie which immediately springs to mind and makes us think “Oh yes, of course!” when we attempt to delve into our memory in order to put together the various pieces of our “Capri film collection”. The film in question is l’Imperatore di Capri (The Emperor of Capri), directed in 1950 by Luigi Comencini. As well as the great Italian comic genius, it stars Yvonne Sanson, who mistakes Totò for an Indian prince (only getting his nationality wrong) and thus gives him the opportunity to escape from the stranglehold of family duties and become the most famous holiday-maker on the island. Yet another case of mistaken identity, a scenario which often provided fertile ground for the comic talents of the great Neapolitan actor (Totò Le Mokò is another classic example).
This is just the beginning, however. For although it may not be the most famous island in the history of the movies (some rivals are simply too big, and we mustn’t forget that Manhattan, too, is an island), Capri has always had a close relationship with the seventh art. As is shown by the innumerable stars who have come to visit the island, many of them from the other side of the Atlantic, and, to stick to more recent events, by the foundation of the “Capri-Hollywood” festival, which underlines the direct link between the island and the home of the movies.
The attraction that Capri exerts on the movie world has left us with many very different films, some of them made before The L’imperatore di Capri. One example is the interesting September Affair (1949), directed by William Dieterle and starring Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten. The film is the story of an American businessman and an English pianist, both married, who meet and fall in love while travelling through Italy. Following an air crash they are both mistakenly included in the list of victims, after which they decide (like fledgling Mattia Pascals) to remain together on Capri, thus starting off the tendency in the film world to consider the island as a place of dreams.
Including dreams which last only a season, for the most common genre of films shot on Capri is the so-called “seaside holiday movie”, where, in different periods and with different outcomes, the beauty of the island and the holiday atmosphere are the backdrop for love affairs and brief flirtations. This is the case with Avventura a Capri (Adventure on Capri) (1958), directed by Giuseppe Lipartiti and starring Maurizio Arena, Alessandra Panaro, Nino Taranto and Leopoldo Trieste. Here two couples who have met on the island experience a series of misadventures before finally getting back together and pledging eternal love.
In the same vein is a film made eleven years earlier, L’isola del sogno - amori e canzoni (The Island of Dreams – Love and Song), directed by Ernesto Remani and featuring Carlo Campanini, Clelia Matania and Silvana Jachino. The storyline is slightly different – Gianni is a singer, and Giorgio composes music, and together they have come to Capri to find peace and quiet in order to work on the script of a musical. What they have not reckoned with is the atmosphere of the island – the atmosphere of dreams explicitly referred to in the title. Gianni and Giorgio meet two beautiful girls, and their plans to work go up in smoke.
As far as Capri is concerned, the art of summer affairs and beach Don Juans, bathed in the playful and essentially prudish atmosphere of seaside Italy (at least as it was portrayed in the movies) was captured perfectly by Vittorio Caprioli in his 1962 film Leoni al sole (Lions in the Sun), starring the director himself together with Carlo Giuffrè, Philippe Leroy and the wonderful Franca Valeri. A whole series of episodes paints a cheerful picture of the characteristics of these holiday Romeos. In Il mare (The Sea), directed in 1963 by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and starring Umberto Orsini, Francoise Prévost and Dino Mele, there is no holiday atmosphere – the film is set in winter.
It does deal with love, but in keeping with the season there is no seaside lightheartedness. It tells the story of the tormented relationship between two men and a woman, with the incessant movement of the sea as a counterpoint to the wave-like progress of their passions.
Since we’re now in “serious movie” terrain, we might mention two of the most prestigious films shot on the island. The first is Le Mépris (Contempt, 1963), directed by none other than Jean Luc Godard, the main exponent together with Truffaut of the movement that achieved critical acclaim and then worldwide fame under the name Nouvelle Vague, and starring Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang together with the legendary Brigitte Bardot, whose beauty might even have dimmed that of Capri itself. A story of love, betrayal and death, the film is based on the novel by Alberto Moravia. This literary origin is shared by La Pelle (The Skin, 1981), based on the celebrated novel by Curzio Malaparte. The film version directed by Liliana Cavani is another of the great films made on the island, thanks to a fine cast including Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale, another of the many beautiful women who have landed on Capri over the years. The gallery of renowned beauties would not be complete without Sophia Loren, who was of course born and brought up very near to the Bay of Naples. It Started in Naples, directed in 1960 by Melville Shavelson, stars Loren with two movie legends, Clark Gable and Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of an American lawyer who has come to Italy to sort out the inheritance of the young son of one of his brothers, who has died in a car accident. The young boy lives with an aunt (Loren) whom he has become very fond of. It is not difficult to imagine the way it ends, but the film is definitely worth seeing (again). Another film worth seeing again, if only to take an objective look at a phenomenon that was ridiculed by the critics but loved by the fans, is Un jeans e una maglietta (Jeans and T-shirt), directed in 1983 by Mariano Laurenti. The phenomenon in question is Nino D’Angelo, still playing the Neapolitan scugnizzo before his appearance and his act were spruced up by the image-men.
Although the subject is “love between the classes”, the film draws widely on the Capri romance genre mentioned above. Nino, a barman in a pub on the island, falls in love with the beautiful, wealthy, and much-courted Annabella. He manages to win her love, provoking the wrath of her father, but “no-one can stop love”. Another love story between the social classes is Il suo nome è donna Rosa (Her Name is Donna Rosa), a musical about an old man who wants to marry the elderly Donna Rosa, whose noble background seems to be an obstacle. In order to get round the problems, the aging lover encourages his young daughter to go out with Donna Rosa’s son, but his daughter prefers a poor Neapolitan fisherman.
Directed in 1969 by Ettore M. Pizzarotti, the film has what it takes to be the real Capri cult movie. Although it might not have made a big mark on movie history, and is best remembered for some of the songs, it stars Romina and Al Bano before their success as pop singers made them give up the movies, and also features a rare film appearance by Pippo Baudo. “Must be seen”, as they say. Having ended our survey on a high note, we can conclude with an interesting, though not entirely relevant fact. Capri was also the setting for an episode of the famous TV series Love Boat – this, of course, is very natural, since Capri is synonymous with love.