“Il primo film tutto parlato in italiano”. The Debate on Sei tu l'amore? in Magazines

Abstract

La canzone dell’amore – directed by Gennaro Righelli and produced by Cines Pittaluga in 1930 – according to historical studies, is the first sound film direct driven in Italian. The issue is more complex referring to reviews of that time. Sei tu l’amore? – italian movie directed by Alfredo Sabato and produced in the same year by Italotone – comes narrowly before the Cines movie. The film Italotone will be screened with immediate success all over Italy due to the great innovation of the sound, but in the meanwhile shows to italian public cultural and normative models in contrast with the patriarchal rhetoric of Fascism. This caused a little but harmless case of Hollywoodian soft power in fascist Italy.

Keywords

• sound film
• italian cinema
• italophone cinema
• italian production
• history of italian cinema