Enrico Guazzoni
1876 - 1949
Le medaglie di Bidoni
Enrico Guazzoni
A patriotic film tinged with humor and sentimentalism. Stock footage (the crowded town, the departure of warships) and reconstructed war scenes in the desert are part of the second half about the war in Libya. The soldier Bidoni (P. Cuticca) is a mess-maker but has a great affection for Claretta (M. Tucci), the young daughter of the colonel, which she returns.
The Medals of Bidoni
Cajus Julius Caesar
Enrico Guazzoni
A colossal epic film like this that tries to depict the life and glory of Julius Caesar, must have a variety of scenery appropriate to the film's hero. This includes the Senate and its conspirators..or .. strange places beyond Rome full of barbarians that must fall under the Rome yoke. Let's not forget the sequences depicting the masses mentioned before.. or.. the human side of Caesar and his troublesome relationship with his son Brutus.
Cajus Julius Caesar
Quo Vadis?
Enrico Guazzoni
Amleto Novelli, Gustavo Serena
During the latter years of the reign of the tyrannical Roman emperor Nero, Marcus Vinicius, one of Nero's officers, falls in love with a young Christian named Lygia, attempting to enslave her. Lygia's protector, the noble and burly Ursus, works to save her from Vinicius' clutches. Pursuing Lygia, Vinicius finds himself at a catacomb prayer meeting led by the apostle Peter and finds his conscience stirring-- just as Nero orders Rome burned. A landmark in epic film, Enrico Guazzoni’s grand-scale masterpiece laid the foundations for what colossal Italian spectacles would become. The film had tremendous influence on Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) and D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).
Quo Vadis?
Messalina
Enrico Guazzoni
Rina De Liguoro, Calisto Bertramo
In ancient Rome, tyrannical Emperor Caligula is assassinated through the machinations of Messalina. She then makes a conquest of Marcus, who forces the Senate to name her husband, Claudius, as emperor. Messalina's wicked ways continue when she falls in love with Ennio, a slave. Ennio is also loved by Egyptian princess Mirit, but he loves neither of them, preferring the company of Ela, a Greek slave.
Messalina
Madame Tallien
Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni
Lyda Borelli, Renzo Fabiani
“Madame Tallien” (1916) depicts the libertine life and loves of the eponymous decadent aristocrat, an important activist who was ahead of her time in deciding to make both love and war before, during and after the French Revolution . She even caused Robespierre to lose his head (literally) because of her.
Madame Guillotine
La fornarina
Enrico Guazzoni
Lída Baarová, Walter Lazzaro
During Italian renaissance, young painter Raffaello Sanzio falls in love with Margherita, a maiden of the people, becomes her lover and lives with her. But this relationship arouses the jealousy of a beautiful aristocrat who secretly orders the kidnapping of the girl. Raffaello falls into a state of prostration and does everything he can to find Margherita...
La fornarina
Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra
Enrico Guazzoni
Gianna Terribili-Gonzales, Amleto Novelli
Based loosely on Shakespeare's play, Plutarch's "Life of Antony", and Pietro Cossa's dramatic poem, "Cleopatra", this movie was spectacular for its time. It offers location shots made in Italy and Egypt, large crowd scenes (e.g., the Roman army embarking in Alexandria), lots of emotional drama (Marc Antony & Cleopatra, his wife Octavia, sister of Antony's rival Octavian, unhistorically coming to Alexandria to beg him to return to her, and some mean, mean looks exchanged between Octavia and Cleopatra.
Marc Antony and Cleopatra
La sposa del Nilo
Enrico Guazzoni
La Sposa del Nilo (1911) was a proto-epic, where you could sense the Italian filmmakers (Enrico Guazzoni in this case) gearing up to the gigantic imaginings of Cabiria and Quo Vadis just a few years on. The film wanted to impress you with its stateliness and scale; at time the central action (a young virgin is drowned to appease Isis and ensure that the Nile floods) became lost in the crowded frame – but that just reminded you that early cinema audiences look that much more intently at what was going on, and picked up on details that our lazier eyes sometimes miss.
La sposa del Nilo
Fabiola
Enrico Guazzoni
Giula Cassini-Rizzotto, Bruto Castellani
In "Fabiola" (1918) Herr Guarzzoni moved from the earliest days of Christianity when the new faith was struggling to just survive to a later period in the Roman Empire when the religion was a major force and attempting to win over Rome.
Fabiola
