Papà
About Papà
The Count of Larzac fires four mistresses and goes to the imaginary village of Gerac to collect his natural son Giovanni from Abbé Jocasse. Giovanni is twenty, a year short of legal majority. He has been courting Georgette Coursan. The shepherdess Giovanna Aubrin loves him and he has not noticed. He asks Georgette to write yes or no, then leaves for Paris. Her letter says yes. The count refuses the marriage, and Giovanni starts back to the village. Georgette goes the other way, meets the count in Paris, and he suddenly agrees she may join the family. In Gerac she ends in his arms. Giovanni turns to Giovanna, who is waiting with a lamb.
Cast & crew
More about Papà
Nino Oxilia directed and wrote the script from the 1911 three-act comedy Papa by Robert de Flers and Gaston de Caillavet, which he had seen at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. Giorgino Ricci photographed it for Cines. Italian censorship passed it on 21 April 1915. It opened in Rome on 7 October 1915. The original length is 594 meters. Ruggero Ruggeri plays the count, Amleto Novelli plays Giovanni, Pina Menichelli plays Georgette, and Suzanne Arduini plays Giovanna. Giuseppe Piemontesi is Charmeuil. Amerigo Tramonti is the abbé.
Themes
Making
Oxilia filmed a Paris comedy Italy had not yet published, and put Menichelli among wildflowers instead of in the roles she took later the same year.
Look
Giorgino Ricci photographed Gerac and the Paris rooms where the count refuses the marriage and then reverses himself.
Preservation
In 2012 the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin restored a 580-meter Desmetcolor print at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna. Il Cinema Ritrovato times that copy at 29 minutes at 18 frames per second. The original release was 594 meters.
Notes
- Festival notes spell the count's name Sarzac. The Italian filmography uses Larzac.
- Suzanne Arduini is also billed under her later name, Suzy Prim.
- Menichelli's later parts in Il fuoco (1915) and Tigre reale (1916), both directed by Giovanni Pastrone, are the fatal-woman roles. Here she is the country girl on a bicycle.
- The 2012 restoration is 580 meters, 14 meters short of the 594-meter original.
Scenes
- The count dismisses four mistresses and goes to Gerac for his son.
- Georgette arrives in Paris and the count drops his refusal.
- Giovanna waits with a lamb while Georgette stays with the count.
Influenced by
- Robert de Flers and Gaston de Caillavet's Papa (1911)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Papà (1915).webm)
