Madame Guillotine
About Madame Guillotine
Lyda Borelli plays Marchioness Teresa di Fontenay, who divorces so she can marry the monarchist journalist Jean Guery. The Revolution stops the wedding. Sans-culottes catch Guery and take him before Robespierre. Tallien, on the Committee of Public Safety, wants Teresa, and she says she will be his if he saves Guery. Tallien brings Robespierre down, and Robespierre is sent to the guillotine. Tallien then falls from power. Guery is executed, and Teresa is left alone.
Cast & crew
More about Madame Guillotine
Mario Caserini and Enrico Guazzoni directed. Guazzoni wrote the scenario, from a play by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau that was also staged as Robespierre, and he designed the costumes. Gabriele Gabrielian photographed it. Palatino Film of Rome produced it. Camille de Morlhon had already filmed the play in France in 1911.
Themes
Background
On screen, Tallien’s break with Robespierre sends Robespierre to the guillotine, the turn of July 1794 that ended the Terror.
Making
Palatino staged Sardou and Moreau’s drama as a Borelli vehicle, with Guazzoni handling both the script and the clothes.
Look
Gabriele Gabrielian photographed the film, with Guazzoni’s costumes set against the revolutionary rooms.
Music
Silent, with Italian intertitles.
Preservation
In 1995 the Cineteca di Bologna restored it from a nitrate camera negative without titles, from the Pittaluga archive, and a positive with French titles held by the Cinémathèque française.
Notes
- Renzo Fabiani plays Robespierre, Amleto Novelli plays Tallien, Ruggero Barni plays Jean Guery, and Ettore Baccani plays Fontenay.
- The Italian title is Madame Tallien.
- Export & Import Film Company put it out in the United States in 1917 on a states-rights basis, under the title Robespierre.
- The play uses the life of Thérésa Cabarrus, whose second husband was Jean-Lambert Tallien.
- Silent Era marks the length as a possible six reels.
Scenes
- Guery is brought before Robespierre.
- Teresa tells Tallien she will be his if Guery is spared.
- Robespierre is condemned to the guillotine.
- Guery is executed, and Teresa remains alone.
Influenced by
- Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's play Madame Tallien
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Madame Tallien (1916).webm)
