Mario Caserini
1874 - 1920
La gorgona
Mario Caserini
Tina Di Lorenzo, Annibale Ninchi
Pisa, 11th century. Spina, a young priestess daughter of Peter, is devoted to keeping a flame burning that illuminates the way back for those returning from the Crusade. But the Florentine knight Lamberto falls in love with her and the two young men fail in the vow of chastity that Spina committed. The shame for having betrayed the promise of purity made pushes Spina to suicide and Lamberto kills himself with her.
The Gorgona
Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeii
Mario Caserini
Ubaldo Stefani, Fernanda Negri Pouget
Well-respected Pompeiian Glaucus performs an act of kindness by purchasing Nydia, a blind slave being mistreated by her owner. Nydia falls in love with her new master, but he only has eyes for Ione. Ione in turn is lusted after by Arbace, an Egyptian high priest of Isis. When Nydia beseeches Isis for help in capturing Glaucus' heart, Arbace gives her a "love" potion-- an elixir made to drive Glaucus mad, securing Ione for himself. Ultimately, Mount Vesuvius will end their lives and seal their fates in a terrible, glorious eruption.
The Last Days of Pompeii
Ma l'amor mio non muore
Mario Caserini
Lyda Borelli, Mario Bonnard
Grand Duchy of Wallenstein. Elsa Holbein is the young beautiful daughter of General Julius, the Chief of the General Staff. After a spy named Moise Sthar steals military documents, Julius is accused of betrayal. He kills himself while Elsa is forced to leave. Homeless, she begins wandering the streets until, on the Riviera, she starts her performing career under the pseudonym of Diana Cadouleur and becomes a successful actress and singer. One day, in a small church, she meets an elegant young man and she falls in love with him. But during a tour on the Lucarno Lake she runs into Sthar who, rejected by Elena, spreads rumors about Prince Massimiliano’s behavior.
Love Everlasting
Nelly, la domatrice
Mario Caserini
Fernanda Negri Pouget, Mario Bonnard
A melodrama about a female lion tamer who has an extramarital relationship with a distinguished gentleman, and then moves in with him. When she later comes to regret her actions, her husband has already died of sorrow.
Nelly, the Tamer
Vittoria o morte!
Mario Caserini
Berta Nelson
Italian silent film Victory or Death, directed by Caserini. An early crime thriller, the plot revolves around the Countess Alberti -- played by Berta Nelson -- who spends the film in hot pursuit of a spy who stole her father’s secret documents.
Victory or Death
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
I mille
Mario Caserini, Alberto Degli Abbati
Maria Bay, Vitale Di Stefano
This story first takes you to Misslimeri, a little Sicilian village, and into the home of Don Ruggero, a wealthy landowner. Don Ruggero is an iron-hearted man and strongly prejudiced against the lower classes. His son, Corrado, a young fellow, loves Rosalia, a shepherdess, but Don Ruggero has always refused to allow their marriage and to recognize little Vincenzino, their child, as his grandchild. Finally to destroy all Corrado's hopes, he discharges poor Rosalia from his farm, where she had been employed for many years. Even the sight of her departure with Vincenzino in her arms does not soften him. Rosalia is the very ideal of the Sicilian beauty, and Capt. Altieri, an officer in the service of the Dominators, the Bourbons, admires her immensely, but all his approaches are strongly repulsed by her. Don Ruggero and his son have for a long time conspired to free their motherland from the hands of the Bourbons, and when they receive news of the arrival of Garibaldi.
A Sicilian Heroine
