Special Birthdays

Pete Hamill (screenwriter) is 85 today.

Giancarlo Bastiannoni (actor) is 80 today.

Vittorio Storaro (cinematographer) is 80 today.

Eduard Akopov (screenwriter) is 75 today.

Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia: the record pair. The secret of their success [Part 1]

By Domenico Palattella

December 28, 2014 

"There is more Italy in a film by Franchi and Ingrassia than in all Italian comedies"

(Federico Fellini, on Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia)

Of the "Monsters of the Italian Vomedy" they had almost despotically dominated the so-called committed cinema, even more tyrannically Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia monopolized the popular one. At the beginning of the 1960s, the sensational explosion of Franco and Ciccio occurred, not surprisingly, the last two great comedians to have made their bones in the forerunner, and to have faced the tough apprenticeship like the others. Some figures are frightening and impressive, and it is worth listing them. Between 1960 and 1972 (the year of the first separation) the couple's films grossed over 35 billion lire, equal to 10% of the takings of all Italian cinema of the period. In 1964 alone, the two collected 12% of the national total; and in their heyday between 1964 and 1968 in which they appeared in more than 60 films, Franchi & Ingrassia represented 20% of the proceeds of all Italian cinema of the four-year period. More than impressive numbers. Not to mention the total number of films in pairs, 125 in 12 years, more than 10 per year on average; or the receipts of their films, taken individually, which always fluctuated between 600 million and a billion lire of receipts, against a cost of up to 100 million lire per film. The manufacturers, therefore obviously, competed to grab the performance of against a cost of up to 100 million lire per film. The producers, therefore obviously, competed to grab the performance of the "The Golden Couple of Italian Cinema".

After their debut, as side numbers, in a musical film with Domenico Modugno and Mina ("Appuntamento a Ischia" by Mario Mattoli, 1960), the two comedians began to make themselves known to the general public, appearing in 10 films in 1961 and 1962, before the definitive consecration that took place in 1963. “Our films did not rest on a rigid screenplay, but on a simple canvas, a subject reduced to the minimum terms and everything there was to build was entrusted to the our ability to improvise and invent ... we were a guarantee for everyone because the film was good or bad: some grimaces, a little theatrical experience and knowledge of the tastes of the audience filled the gaps in the script ", Franco Franchi tells about the great success achieved in tandem with Ciccio. The two comedians were born in Palermo, respectively in 1928 (Benenato alias Franchi) and in 1923 (Ingrassia), and when Domenico Modugno noticed them in an occasional show, in which he too had participated, in Reggio Calabria in 1958, they were a couple fixed for four years. Together, Franchi & Ingrassia would have made up the greatest pair of Italian cinema, the pair par excellence of the Italian show, making all previous ones seem almost precarious. The director Luigi Comencini would have taken note of this triumphant symbiosis by calling them to embody the cat and the fox in his splendid and very successful "Pinocchio" television and successfully distributed for the big screen, in 1972. And one could not imagine a more successful assortment, with the small and elastic silver-colored Franchi engaged in perpetual motion, in contrast with the phlegm of the lanky, bloodless, cerebral Ingrassia.

Of the two we can say that Francho is the arm and Ingrassia the mind, but in reality the two were complementary. At the cinema they specialized in the genre of parody films, a cue, a pretext, a hypothesis of ideas, and a willing directora (Simonelli and Fulci were the most assiduous) were enough to make a film with a flying drum, all the weight of which it was practically entrusted to the fantastic repertoire of the two Sicilians. Something similar had already happened, of course, with Totò in the post-war years; there too we have a product made quickly and almost with cynicism, which achieved great public success and the full, and unjust, indifference of critics. Franco and Ciccio are two comic masks that have their roots in the Sicilian cultural humus, imbued with parody and popular irony. The Sicilian parody is the revenge of the poor over the rich and powerful, a manifestation of celebration and happiness, a singular means of cultural expression. The parody is egalitarian, it wants to show that there are no differences between men, it exposes an easily understandable and immediately enjoyable comic speech. The two comedians are false cialtroni, fake boobs, capable of making fun of the powerful (who put the sedan) and the myths of cinema (who remake in parody), laughing at everything with simple and genuine humor. Franco and Ciccio are two clowns beloved by the public and despised by critics, perhaps precisely because their comedy is linked to a little understood genre such as parody. The Sicilian couple does not interpret parodies because they are in fashion or because they guarantee safe takings, but because it is their way of being actors, their comedy is formed on that type of popular culture. Italian cinema knows the parody thanks to Totò, Macario, Raimondo Vianello, Ugo Tognazzi and Walter Chiari, but the arrival on the big screen of Franco and Ciccio upsets the schemes and sets the parodic discourse in much more radical terms. Franco and Ciccio are the parody of cinema, two actors capable of making the public regress to the childish state of entertainment. The parody is their world, their primordial soup, the humus where they grow and are at ease, drawing on the Greek and Latin tradition, but more directly on the Sicilian ancestors. Their comedy is a parody that is based on a popular language, which communicates with the viewer through direct body language. Grotesque and irony are the style of their comedy, bringing down each model and transforming it into a parody. Their own figures are grotesque: tall and lanky Ciccio, small and with the rubber face Franco, full of expressive gestures that lead to fat laughter and unusual grimaces in high cinema. Their comic language is grotesque, because it is based on the misunderstanding, on the qui pro quo, on the crass ignorance exhibited by the comedian. Franco and Ciccio's masks are those of two characters inadequate to any situation who in life only want to try to get away with it in the best possible way, without understanding the reality that surrounds them. 

The parody of the two comedians goes towards the people, it must be interpreted as a poor art that addresses the most humble and least cultured part of the public. The comedy of Franco and Ciccio derives from Plauto's comedy, from poetry and popular songs, from the carnescialate (carnival songs), from the work of the puppets (Sicilian puppets), from the placards and pasquinate (anecdotes of the people against power), from all the popular theater seasoned with farcical improvisation. Franco and Ciccio's poetics is the poetic of the cialtrone, because wearing two masks - which are two comic stereotypes - they behave like real cialtroni and show an upside down world. Franco and Ciccio are two actors who act arm in arm, starting from a preconceived canvas, but base their comedy on improvisation. They have great inventiveness, they pass the jokes, they respect the times without smudging, according to the lesson of silent cinema which included genuine, immediate, impromptu gags, based on face cakes and banana peels. They are actors but also authors of their films and of the television skits they interpret, because they read the script, try it, and finally improvise and enrich the script. The great success of Franco and Ciccio is due to the parody, but also to their way of being natural, genuine and popular comedians. Their mimic humor made of jokes, grimaces, verbal calembour, endless misunderstandings is perfect for an audience of few pretensions. Franco and Ciccio are the street theater that conquers cinema and television, two spontaneous comedians who send crowds of kids and older people into raptures, two fantastic actors who play cialtroni. "There is more Italy in a film by Franchi and Ingrassia than in all Italian comedies". This is because Franco and Ciccio described the people, the people of the squares, the people inadequate in front of the powerful, but who measure themselves against the powerful, the public therefore, was reflected in it and decreed its triumph. The Italian comic cinema of the 1960s is called Franchi & Ingrassia. The great success began at the end of 1962 with the film "I due della legione", the first real film by the couple's absolute protagonists; and above all with the following  "I due mafiosi" of 1963, which achieved exceptional success by collecting nearly a billion lire and from there a successful trend was inaugurated. In fact, later, they would come "Two Mafia in the Far West" (1964), the film by the couple who has made the most money ever, hitting one and a half billion in takings; "Two Mafiosi against Goldginger"  (1965) and  "Due mafiosi against Al Capone" (1966).

[To be continued]

Special Birthdays

Gerry Wolff (actor) would have been 100 today, he died in 2005.

Biagio Proietti (screenwriter) is 80 today.

RIP Actor Claus Biederstaedt

German actor and voice dubber Claus Biederstaedt died on Thursday June 18, 2020. He was 91. Claus appeared in over 60 films including the Euro-westerns ‘Mexikanische Revolution’ a 1968 TV films as (Jose Maria Gonzales) and 1978 TV Jack London film ‘Burning Daylight’ as Erzhaler. He was probably best known as a voice actor and the German voice of such actors as Marlon Brando, Yves Montand, James Garner and Paul Newman. He voice Guy Madison in 1967’s “Payment in Blood”, Yul Brynner in 1968’s “Pancho Villa”, Stephen Boyd in 1968’s “Shalako” and Mimmo Palmara in 1968’s “Shotgun” with Tab Hunter.

European Western Comic Books ~ Album Cineromanzi Missionaries

Album Cineromanzi Missionaries
Missionary Adventures in Overseas Countries

A total of 37 issues were produced, divided into two series with non progressive numbering: Series I #1 (1947) - #26 (1951) Series II #1 (1952) - #11 (1960)

The series of magazines, were also called HEROES AND CONQUERORS, which alternated the vertical format (v) with the horizontal format (o) of sixteen self-covered pages in the first series (except the numbers 12 and 13, 16 pages + cover) and with cover in the second series. They present adventure stories already published in the ITALIA MISSIONARIA magazine. In some cases, the adventures are first published in the register and then in the magazine. Often the authors use pseudonyms or contractions of their name, so Armino stands for Armando Talpone, author, among other things, of most of the comic books and stories that complete the books, while the novelist Gaetano Bernardi is hidden under the alias Rusticus . The designer Franco Donatelli also signs himself Frank or Frank Donat, while the designer Alberto Mauri signs himself Malbert. Also texts by Gastone Toschi and Jolanda Gianoli and drawings by Giuseppe Cappadomia. In appendix Maggi comic stories. The covers are made by Armino, Renzo Maggi and Cecilio Manfredotti.

The first year of publication was 1947 #1 00.00.1947 to #11 (37) 00.00.1960 and published by P.I.M.E. - Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions in Milan, Italy with black and white pages and color covers

Series I titles
01 - “Il genio del deserto” (A. Cremonesi/Armino) (v) (The Genius of the Desert)
02 - “L’ultimo Inca” (Ugo Mioni/Armino) (o) (The Last Inca)
03 - “Tra gli Apachi” (G. Bernardi/Cappadonia) (v) (Among the Apache)
04 - “Il figlio dell’emiro” (Ugo Mioni/Armino) (o) (The Emir’s Son)
05 - “Un urlo fra le tenebre” (A Scream in the Dark)
06 - “Il gran giorno” (Rusticus) (o) (The Great Day)
07 - “Nel covo delle belve” (Rusticus/Cappadonia) (v) (In the Hideout of the Beasts)
08 - “L’eroe dei mari” (Mioni/Renzo Maggi) (v) (The Hero of the Seas)
09 - “La setta dei Gialli” (N.M. Lugaro/Armino) (v) (The Yellow Sect)
10 - “Il segno di Liung” (Lugaro/Armino) (v) (The Sign of Liung)
11 - “Verso il nuovo mondo” (Armino/Armino) (v) (Towards the New World)
12 - “La piccola Devadasi” (Giuseppe Stefanetti/Armino) (v) (The Little Devadasi)
13 - “L’angelo di Vera Cruz” (Armino/Armino) (v) (The Angel of Vera Cruz)
14 - “Nella cella proibita” (L. Santandrea/Cecilio) (o) (In the Forbidden Cell)
15 - “Il mercante di schiavi” (Jolanda Gianoli/Franco Donatelli) (o) (The Slave Trader)
16 - “Il lama dalla veste rossa” (Luisa Santandrea/Cecilio) (o) (The Lama With the Red

         Robe)
17 - “La Madonna di Guadalajara” (Gastone Toschi/Giuseppe Pin) (o) (Our Lady of

         Guadalajara)
18 - “La palude della morte” (Rusticus/Donatelli) (v) (The Swamp of Death)
19 - “Le due missioni” (Gaetano Bernardi/Pin) (o) (The Two Missions)
20 - “Coda macchiata” (Rusticus/Armino) (v) (Spotted Tail)
21 - “Apostoli ed eroi” (Maggi/Maggi) (v) (Apostles and Heroes)
22 - “Nella grande foresta” (Gianoli/Maggi) (v) (In the Great Forest)
23 - “Il fantasma Bianco” (Armino?) (v) (The White Ghost)
24 - “L’elefante di Mary” (Rusticus/Frank) (v) (Mary’s Elephant)
25 - “La vendetta dello stregone” (Gianoli/Frank Donat) (v) (The Sorcerer’s Revenge)
26 - “Gli Aniotos” (G. Biasotti/Maggi) (v) (The Aniotos)

Series II titles
01 - “Forze opposte” (Maggi?) (Opposing Forces)
02 - “Sarete perseguitati” (Maggi) (You Will Be Persecuted)
03 - “La valanga” (Maggi?) (The Avalanche)
04 - “Angeli del reggimento” (Cecilio Manfredotti?/Manfredotti) (Angels of the

         Regiment)
05 - “Sangue sull’oceano” (Manfredotti?/Manfredotti) (Blood on the Ocean)
06 - “L’eroe dei due continenti” (Manfredotti?/Manfredotti) (The Hero of Two

         Continents)
07 - “Nel terrore del grande nord” (Manfredotti) (In the Terror of the Great North)
08 - “Grazia Hosokawa” (Maggi) (Grace Hosokawa)
09 - “Il mercante di schiavi” (P. Manzi/Alberto Mauri) (The Slave Trader)
10 - “La legge della steppa” (The Law of Steppe)
11 - “Nel sud Dakota” (Giovanna Biasotti/Malbert) (In South Dakota)

Special Birthdays

Uwe Boll (director) is 45 today.

Father's Day 2020