The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola
About The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola
A storm wrecks Captain Barnaba Farandola's ship. His infant son Saturnino drifts to an island of apes, grows up among them, and is taken off by sailors. After he leads a revolt against the pirate Bora-Bora, the crew makes him captain. He marries Misora. A whale swallows her, Professor Cocknuff buys the whale for an aquarium in Melbourne, and Saturnino recruits the apes, wrecks the aquarium, and gets her out. Later episodes send the couple after a stolen white elephant in Bangkok, to the source of the Nile, and into a war with Phileas Fogg over moving Niagara Falls.
Cast & crew
More about The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola
Marcel Fabre, also billed as Marcel Perez, directed and played Saturnino. Luigi Maggi is also credited. Guido Volante wrote the scenario from Albert Robida's 1879 novel Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul. Ottavio De Matteis photographed it. Decoroso Bonifanti and Enrico Lupi designed the sets. Arturo Ambrosio produced. Ambrosio released it in Italy on 25 November 1913 in four episodes, twelve reels. Ambrosio American Company released it in the United States in March 1914.
Themes
Making
Fabre plays the captain who was raised by apes and also stages the war on Cocknuff's aquarium. The four-episode release treats Robida's travel novel as a serial rather than one continuous feature.
Look
Ottavio De Matteis photographed the picture, including the aquarium destruction and the balloon duel.
Preservation
Silent Era lists a surviving print of episode two, Alla ricerca dell'elefante bianco. English Wikipedia gives the circulating length as 57 minutes.
Notes
- The four episodes are L'isola delle scimmie, Alla ricerca dell'elefante bianco, La regina dei Makalolos, and Farandola contro Fileas-Fogg.
- Nilde Baracchi plays Misora. The English sources also spell the name Mysora.
- In the Bangkok episode, minister Nao-Ching has sold the Siamese king's white elephant to the mandarin of San-Kiù. Misora poses as the mandarin's wife and drugs the guards with opium.
- In the last episode Saturnino beats Fogg's army with chloroform bombs and a pneumatic aspirator, then duels him from armed balloons.
- Silent Era records a surviving print of the second episode.
Scenes
- The baby Saturnino is set adrift and raised by apes on the Paumotu Islands.
- A whale swallows Misora, and Saturnino smashes Cocknuff's Melbourne aquarium to free her.
- Misora distracts the mandarin's guards with opium and frees the prisoners.
- Saturnino and Phileas Fogg fight from hot-air balloons fitted with machine guns.
Influenced by
- Albert Robida's Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul (1879)
